Here there were two big surprises. First, where’s Pedro? And second, this year's lack of audience boring political rhetoric.  Pedro Almodovar's "Volver" took home a record five top honors at the 21st Goya Awards ceremony , leaving rivals "Alatriste", "Pan's Labyrinth" and "Salvador" to divide up the remainder of the less popular prizes. The big buzz during the evening was the fact that even though "Volver" received several key awards, including film, director, actress, original score and supporting actress, Spain's most popular director was not on hand to receive his award. He decided to stay home because Pedro had a major argument with the Spanish film academy in 2005 over the treatment of his film "Bad Education" and hasn't attended a gala ceremony since. But that didn’t dampen "Volver" star Penelope Cruz’s spirits and she was everyone’s undisputed queen of the evening. Penelope is also nominated for an Oscar for the same role and her win for ‘Volver’ was her second Goya award. Later in the evening, she reappeared to accept Almodovar's directorial award for "Volver," his 16th feature. Guillermo del Toro, whose "Labyrinth" had been nominated for 13 awards, took home seven statues and will represent Mexico for the foreign-language Oscar. "Alatriste" had been nominated in 15 categories but didn't fare so well, managing only three prizes.  The political drama "Salvador," which had been nominated for 11 categories, won only one. The Spanish Film Academy, which hands out the prestigious awards, made a conscientious effort to glamorize the event and shorten it, and delayed the televised broadcast by 30 minutes to cut down the speeches. In the past few years the Gala, had been dominated by anti -American political interests and saw its ratings fall dramatically. This year the event was noticeably apolitical. Yet no American actor or film won any awards. “The Queen” won the best European Film award. For entire Goya awards listing: