Carmen Machi Receives 2026 National Film Prize in San Sebastian

Actor Carmen Machi received the 2026 National Film Prize at the San Sebastian Festival, an honor granted by Spain's Ministry of Culture since 1980 and presented by the Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts (ICAA). The prize carries an award of €30,000 ($34,437).

Machi is best known for playing Aida in the popular Spanish series "7 Lives" and its spin-off "Aida," as well as for pivotal roles in Pedro Almodóvar's "Talk to Her" and "Broken Embraces." She joins a list of past honorees that includes Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Antonio Banderas, director Fernando Trueba ("Belle Epoque") and El Deseo producer Esther Garcia.

Diego San José, co-screenwriter of the blockbuster "Spanish Affair" ("8 apellidos vascos"), in which Machi also starred, introduced her with a tribute comparing her to national landmarks. "I would say that Carmen is already part of our national heritage, like an aqueduct or like the Burgos Cathedral, but much better preserved than those two examples," he said. He added: "Besides, Carmen has something that neither an aqueduct nor a cathedral has, and that is that when we look at you, we see ourselves. Today, Carmen, as you go up to collect this award, you carry inside you all those women you have portrayed from the beginning: Your mother, your aunts and your neighbors accompany you."

Machi also starred in "Celeste," a series created by San José that won her best actress and also took best series at Series Mania's International Panorama last year. Her other notable work includes Carlota Pereda's Sundance hit "Piggy" and "La Mesías," from Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo — now behind "La Bola Negra" — in which she played the oldest version of a messianic mother figure.

Spanish Minister of Culture Ernest Urtasun said he had rarely received so many enthusiastic messages as when the ministry announced the award in June, calling Machi "a truly great actress of innate talent and extraordinary versatility" and comparing her to Anna Magnani, the late Marisa Paredes and Julieta Serrano.

In her acceptance remarks, Machi recalled a childhood fascination with cinema. "I've always been fascinated by cinema," she said, describing a bedroom filled with clippings and stills of Marlon Brando and childhood memories of hiding behind the sofa to watch black-and-white films with her parents before running off to reenact scenes alone in front of a mirror. "It was something that fascinated me. It gave me a strange sense of freedom. I was just a little girl. Then I would leave the room and go back to waiting. I never imagined that that game, which was a refuge to overcome my insecurity and my shyness, would become my craft and my way of life," she confessed. She added: "This profession has given me a wonderful life. It is and has been the driving force of my happiness and also a balm for my darkest moments."

Photo · Ruben Ortega, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons