"It seems as if the Academy will only listen to the scores of English films"

With his third appearance on an Oscar nominees list, Alberto Iglesias has now surely entered the pantheon of great movie composers. This time around he's been nominated for his score for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, directed by the Swede Tomas Alfredson, after previous nominations for his work on The Constant Gardener in 2006 and The Kite Runner in 2008. Curiously, he has never been nominated for any of his Spanish film work.

"It seems as if the members of the Academy will only listen to the scores of English films," the composer says over the phone.

He's upset because he had heard rumors that his work for The Skin I Live In, directed by Pedro Almodóvar, had been very popular in Hollywood. "It's a score I like," he says.

Nevertheless, the plaudits haven't stopped coming in for the San Sebastián-born musician. "I'm also a nominee at the Goyas and the BAFTAs," he says. "I'm having a lot of luck at the moment. I'm not very conscious of what this nomination means, but it's clear that a lot of Academy members voted for me, and that sounds great."

His work on Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was a typical no-rush-but-no-break job. "I read the novel and the script and I didn't understand anything at the beginning," he confesses. "Alfredson turned out to be a very calm director, in spite of the fact that we were in a big hurry, because they called me in May and we recorded with the orchestra in July. We worked together very well. He came to Madrid, I liked him and he talked a lot about spy films to me, of that Cold War period."

But who decided that the film should end with a version of La mer by Julio Iglesias? "Tomas, even though he already knew we were not related," he jokes. "It's a live version from '73 or '74, and I thought it was very interesting that he ended on a high, far from the drama we see in the movie. It's very cool."

Up against him on Oscar night will be composers Howard Shore, Ludovic Bource and John Williams, who has received two nominations. "[Williams] has written two very good scores, but I prefer the one for Tintin more. Both are pure Williams. He is already at the level of [celebrated film composers Miklós] Rózsa and [Bernard] Herrmann."

Forqué Awards

This year's other Spanish Academy Award nominees are Woody Allen's Spain-produced Midnight in Paris, which is up for four prizes, including Best Picture, and Chico & Rita, nominated for Best Animated Film.

On Monday night Javier Mariscal and Fernando Trueba's Cuba-set musical animation also took home the prize for Best Documentary or Animation Film at the Forqué Film Awards, which are given out by EGEDA, the producers' rights management organization, and often seen as pointers toward potential Goya Award favorites.

The big winner was Enrique Urbizu's thriller No habrá paz para los malvados, which won Best Film and Best Actor for its star José Coronado. Elena Anaya took home the Best Actress prize for her performance in The Skin I Live In, while Trueba received an honorary award for his work as a producer.