Ocho apellidos vascos | |
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Theatrical release poster
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Directed by | Emilio Martínez-Lázaro |
Written by |
Borja Cobeaga Diego San José |
Starring |
Dani Rovira Clara Lago Carmen Machi Karra Elejalde |
Cinematography | Gonzalo F. Berridi Juan Molina |
Production
companies |
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Distributed by | Universal Studios |
Release date
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Running time
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98 minutes |
Country | Spain |
Language | Spanish |
Budget | US$3 million |
Box office | US$78.7 million |
Ocho apellidos vascos (English: Eight Basque Surnames), known as Spanish Affair in English, is a 2014 Spanish comedy film directed by Emilio Martínez-Lázaro. It premiered in Spain on March 14, 2014. Six weeks after its release, it became the second biggest box office hit ever in Spain, behind Avatar.
Rafa (Dani Rovira) has never left his native Seville, Andalucía, until he meets a Basque girl named Amaia (Clara Lago), who resists his seduction techniques. Against his friends' advice, he follows her to Euskadi after she stays the night in his house and forgets her purse. A series of misunderstandings forces Rafa to impersonate a full-blooded Basque with eight surnames (Gabilondo, Urdangarín, Zubizarreta, Arguiñano from the father and Igartiburu, Erentxun, Otegi and Clemente from the mother), and he gets more and more entangled in that character in order to get his way.
The weekend of its premiere, the film gathered an audience of 404,020 which resulted in box office grossing of 2.72 million euros. On its second weekend its grossing increased by 56%, third best behind The Impossible and Avatar in its first ten days with a total 4.4 million euros. By April it became the most watched Spanish film in Spain with more than 6.5 million viewers and the second film with the greatest box office grossing in Spain, only behind Avatar, with a box-office of more than 45 million euros (more than 62 millon dollars). It has grossed US$77 million in Spain and a total of US$78.7 million internationally.
The critics were divided about the film, but were mostly positive. For magazine Cinemanía, Carlos Marañón stressed that the movie was "extremely funny". This comment was repeated in many reviews that highlighted the film is "funny", and for some, "inspired and bright". Federico Marin Bellon journalist of ABC, spoke of a "brave and timely movie", highlighting another aspect, the opportunity of its theme, which has also been emphasized by most critics who often compared it to the French film Welcome to the Sticks. For El País, Borja Valero even predicted it could be the movie of the year.