Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar said Thursday he was “moved to tears” as he received the honorary prize from the San Sebastian Film Festival for his entire body of work, marked by an “unmistakable visual style” according to the organizers.
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“Cinema has given me everything,” said the 75-year-old director upon receiving the Donostia award, one of the highest distinctions at the festival, which has been held in the Spanish Basque city since 1968.
“For me, cinema is a blessing or a curse, I cannot imagine any other type of life than writing and filming tirelessly,” he added during a ceremony attended by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.
The Donostia Award is one of the few distinctions that the director of “All About My Mother” and “Talk to Her” lacked, who has won two Oscars, five Goyas, four Césars and the Spanish National Cinematography Award, among others, during his career.
In early September, he also received the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival for his first film in English, “The Room Next Door”, which he is presenting in San Sebastian – a feature film on assisted suicide, with actresses Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton.
“I have had a career of 23 films, some better than others, and they are all mine and belong to me,” which is “a privilege,” Almodóvar said, describing himself as “moved to tears” at a press conference before receiving his award.
“I never thought about the question of talent. I thought I had a vocation (…) and that if I couldn’t make films, I would be the most unhappy person in the universe,” added the director during the ceremony.
The organizers of the festival, which runs until Saturday, September 28, had indicated last summer that they wanted to give him this prize to recognize the “artistic talent” and the “recognizable visual style” of the Spanish director.
Her work, launched in 1980 with “Pepi, Luci, Bom and other girls from the neighborhood”, stands out “for her writing of female characters”, “her direction of the actors” and her “audacity in the approach” of certain themes “like the LGTBIQ+ universe”, they explained.
Another honorary award was presented this year to the American-Australian actress Cate Blanchett, the other face of the official poster of this edition, for a career of “more than 30 years combining auteur cinema and films aimed at the general public”.
