‘Emilia Pérez’ wins top Spanish film award amid growing backlash against star Karla Sofía Gascón

• “Emilia Pérez” has scooped a top prize at Spain’s equivalent of the Oscars.
• It comes amid a backlash against star Karla Sofía Gascón over resurfaced social media posts.
• Gascón did not attend the awards, which took place Saturday night in Granada, Spain.

Over the past few weeks, “Emilia Pérez” star Karla Sofía Gascón has gone from Academy Award frontrunner to industry pariah following backlash over resurfaced social media posts.

Amid the controversy, the Netflix film has now scooped a top prize at Spain’s equivalent of the Oscars on Saturday, winning best European film.

While Gascón did not attend the ceremony, two representatives from the movie’s Spanish distributors accepted the award on stage and gave the star a shout-out.

As one representative noted, the Spanish-language drama received the most nominations at this year’s Oscars with 13 nods, including best film and a best actress nod for Gascón.

“In the face of hatred and ridicule, more cinema and more culture,” the pair said together.

Voting for Goya nominations closed on January 24, almost a week before a number of offensive posts on X that appeared to have been made by Gascón began going viral.

The posts were brought to light by Canadian journalist Sarah Hagi, who shared screenshots on X. Business Insider couldn’t verify all the screenshots before Gascón’s account was deleted, but according to multiple reports, the posts contained Islamophobic and racist content.

Since then, the director of “Emilia Perez,” Jacques Audiard, and costar Zoe Saldaña — who is up for best supporting actress at the Oscars — have criticized her alleged posts.

Variety and The Hollywood Reporter have reported that Netflix is distancing itself from Gascón in the wake of the controversy.

It is not yet clear whether Gascón will still attend the Oscars on March 2. She is up for best actress against Cynthia Erivo, Mikey Madison, Demi Moore, and Fernanda Torres.

In an interview with CNN en Español in early February, Gascón said she had no intention of withdrawing from the awards.

“I cannot step down from an Oscar nomination because I have not committed any crime nor have I harmed anyone,” she said. “I am neither racist nor anything that all these people have tried to make others believe I am.”

Gascón returned to social media on February 7, posting that she planned to stay quiet for the rest of the film’s Oscars campaign.

She said she was hopeful that her silence would “allow the film to be appreciated for what it is, a beautiful ode to love and difference.”