He just turned 75, his last film The next room just won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and this Thursday Pedro Almodovar has collected the Prize in San Sebastián Donostia to his entire career.
Tilda Swinton” supporting culture.”
“You have planted in each of us a garden of treasures. Your work is good for the world,” said Swinton — who was wearing a sticker with the phrase SOS Gaza— about Almodóvar before introducing a montage with some of the best scenes from the filmmaker’s filmography.
There were many who wondered when the director from La Mancha would receive the Donostia Award, and the first thing he did when receiving the statuette from Swinton was kiss it. “Since I arrived in San Sebastián yesterday there are so many emotions that it is almost impossible to enjoy them almost without breaking down. Thank you very much, You have shown me a love that I have never conceived even in the best of my dreams.“, said Almodóvar.
The filmmaker recalled his childhood in his town, his arrival in Madrid and his last leave from Telefónica to shoot his first film in 1981. “Cinema has given me everything, much more than I could imagine. For me, cinema is a blessing or a curse.“, confessed the director, who has assured that he thinks about the moment when his legs or mind may begin to fail.
Almodóvar and Swinton
“When everything fails me, I will continue making films. Bad films, I suppose, but even that I am willing to do because the alternative is emptiness”he has asserted. “I don’t think I have changed the society in which we live, but when I meet someone whose film of mine has given a new boost to their life, I think that this job is the best in the world,” Almodóvar confessed.
The man from La Mancha wanted to share his award with his team from the production company El Deseo, with actresses such as Penélope Cruz, Carmen Maura, Marisa Paredes, Cecilia Roth and Rossy de Palma. “If I offended anyone I apologize, but I couldn’t have been any other way than I am. I admit that I haven’t tried either.”the filmmaker has confessed.
Almodóvar has revealed that he did not know how to end his speech but that, “abusing” the microphone, he left a piece of advice or a request. “Let’s do everything possible so that the great tragedies, the pain, the lies, the lack of empathy, social injustice, hatred, everything negative imaginable… Let’s make it belong to fiction and that real life happens in a way fair and peaceful. I know I’m asking too much, but I’ve always been like that.”the filmmaker concluded before presenting The next room.
After receiving the award, Almodóvar invited part of the film’s cast and once again insisted that this film is his “answer to all those messages of hate that we see daily.” “It talks about the power of company, of life and the possibility of saying goodbye to it when it offers us unbearable pain”the filmmaker has reflected on the film, which he hopes will move all viewers.
Source: www.huffingtonpost.es
