The Venice Film Festival on Saturday awarded its Golden Lion to Spaniard Pedro Almodovar, giving him, at the age of 74, one of the most prestigious prizes of his immense career for a film on assisted suicide, “The Room Next Door”. The director took advantage of the awards ceremony to make a plea in favour of what he calls a “fundamental right”.
It was with a film about assisted suicide, “The Room Next Door”, that Spanish director Pedro Almodovar won the prestigious Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday 7 September. The former enfant terrible of the Movida stars British actress Tilda Swinton and her American colleague Julianne Moore, in a twilight end-of-life atmosphere.
“I believe that saying goodbye to this world properly and with dignity is a fundamental right of every human being,” the maestro said during the award ceremony, urging “believers of all religions to respect and not interfere in individual decisions on this matter.” “Human beings must be free to live and die when life is unbearable for them,” he concluded.
Almodovar, author of masterpieces such as “All About My Mother”, “Bad Education” and “Pain and Glory”, awarded at the Oscars, had never been consecrated by the supreme prize at a festival.
It was finally the jury chaired by Isabelle Huppert, another great face of European auteur cinema, who awarded this distinction to the Spaniard, a filmmaker of women and feelings par excellence.
With AFP
- FRANCE 24
Read also:
Venice Film Festival: Isabelle Huppert, from Venice to prison
