Netflix Bets 47 Theatrical Days on 'La Bola Negra' for Best Picture

Netflix will give "La Bola Negra," its likeliest contender yet for a first Best Picture Oscar, an unusually long 47-day theatrical release starting October 16. The film arrives after a 20-minute standing ovation at Cannes, a shared best director prize for Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, and a Toronto People's Choice Award — the first non-English-language film to take that prize since 2011.

By Marcus Bennett

"We made this movie for the screen," Ambrossi, 42, told Arts & Voices via Zoom alongside Calvo, 35. "We shot it in 35mm. So that was good news, that people can experience the movie as we thought they would. But Netflix, you can rewatch — you can see all of Penélope Cruz's numbers again and again."

What is 'La Bola Negra' about?

The directing duo, known as Los Javis, strands three timelines across Spain's 20th century. In 1932, young Carlos (Milo Quifes) is blackballed from a social club over his sexuality — hence the title. In 1937, at the height of the Spanish Civil War, singer Guitarricadelafuente plays Sebastián, a reluctant soldier who would rather play his trumpet, while Miguel Bernardeau plays Rafael Rodríguez Rapún, the prisoner of war he must guard. In 2017, a historian (Carlos González) tries to connect the two stories, with help from a brief, striking cameo by Glenn Close.

The film weaves the life of Federico García Lorca into its text, and uses a Grindr notification sound to shift into the present. "I don't like movies that treat me like I'm dumb," Calvo said. "The audience is smart enough. When I see 'Chernobyl,' I maybe don't get some nuclear stuff, but I'm in it. In the gay world — no difference."

Bernardeau's character was real: an activist and actor who was Lorca's romantic partner before the poet's 1936 assassination by Franco's forces. "Rafael was not an open gay man," Ambrossi said. "He was confused — someone that was not able to say what he wanted."

Penélope Cruz plays Nené Romero, a cupletista — a bawdy Spanish cabaret singer Calvo calls "the first pop stars you get in Spain." Her performance has sparked Oscar chatter and, combined with her work in Olivia Wilde's "The Invite," might make her the first performer to earn two nominations in one category under the Academy's new rules.

What does this change for Netflix and queer cinema?

Netflix has won Oscars for films by Jane Campion, Alfonso Cuarón and Guillermo del Toro — but never Best Picture. Two years ago it backed another Spanish-language Cannes winner about queerness, "Emilia Pérez," which collapsed after lead actress Karla Sofía Gascón's old tweets surfaced. Team "La Bola Negra" now speaks, to a one, thoughtfully and deliberately.

For queer artists, the stakes are similar. Guitarricadelafuente, whose real name is Álvaro Lafuente Calvo, is among several out gay actors playing gay characters in this year's race, alongside Andrew Scott of "Elsinore" and Jordan Firstman of "Club Kid." Calvo, who played a gay character in the teen drama "Física o Química" and says nobody hired him afterward, framed the casting as deliberate: "People tend to hire straight stars because they don't want to risk money, which I think is homophobic. We wanted to make this statement."

Ambrossi defended casting the straight Bernardeau opposite him: "It's their craft to portray people that are different from them. I'm not against that. The political statement is still there with the LGBTQ+ people on camera and behind the camera."

Calvo hopes the film pushes further than "Brokeback Mountain" or "Moonlight" in its depiction of gay sensuality. "There's no better way to get people to understand things than art and movies," he said. "They're a really good vehicle for creating empathy — because when you cry with someone, you're always bonded to that story, to that person, to that community."

How the two leads were cast

Los Javis approached Guitarricadelafuente, who sells out arenas in Spain and has collaborated with Troye Sivan, at Barcelona's Primavera Sound festival. "You're saying this because everybody's drinking right now," the singer recalls telling them. "You've had too many drinks!" The next day, Calvo messaged him and asked him to Madrid.

Pedro Almodóvar, one of the film's producers, had one concern about the gentle newcomer: "Is he gonna avoid just being, like … nice?" The actors trained militarily for the roles — "how to hold a rifle," Guitarricadelafuente said — and worked without an intimacy coordinator. "We just worked it out with the Javis," Bernardeau said.

Bernardeau, who studied acting in Los Angeles and found fame on four seasons of the Netflix teen soap "Elite," botched his first audition and begged for another. "I hate auditions!" Ambrossi said. Los Javis knew they wanted him already.

The directors broke up as a couple during the shoot and kept it secret from the cast. "They told me on my last day," Bernardeau said. "When we get into a project, it's a road to the unknown," Calvo said. "And we always trust that by the end of the road, we are going to be different people."

Netflix has slotted "La Bola Negra" as the crown jewel of its 2026 slate, and industry observers see it as the only contender that might topple Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" come March. Ambrossi keeps his own counsel on that: "You have to go frame by frame — it's the only way to do things. Day by day, frame by frame. You do your best every single second, and it will be OK."