Rendez-vous with… Pedro Almodóvar

Born in the heart of La Mancha in the 1950s, Pedro Almodóvar moved to Madrid when he was seventeen in order to study cinema and direct films.There, he worked with the independent theatre group Los Goliardos, made short films, collaborated with various underground magazines, wrote, and formed the parodic punk-rock group, “Almodóvar and McNamara.” His personal revolution coincided with the democratic revolution in Madrid, a mythic period known as La Movida, and from his very first film, Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón (Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls Like Mom), made in 1980, he bears witness to all the vitality, plurality, and emancipation that characterised post-Francoist Spain. In 1986, he founded the El Deseo production company with his brother Agustín Almodóvar, and their first project, La ley del deseo (Law of Desire), was released in 1987. It was with Mujeres al borde de un ataque de “nervios” (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown) in 1988 that he became known to the general public. Directing a resolutely sensitive style of cinema, he invites the audience from the very beginning to question universal themes such as love, desire, childhood, and motherhood. He placed women at the centre of this work, thus demonstrating all his passion for those whom he grew up with and admired so much. With Todo sobre mi madre (All About My Mother) in 1999, he won the Best Director Award at the Festival de Cannes as well as his first Oscar in the Best Foreign Language Film category. His success continued in 2002 with Hable con ella (Talk to Her), which won him numerous awards, including the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. In 2004, La mala educación (Bad Education) was screened after the opening ceremony, a first for a Spanish film. Pedro Almódovar then received the award for Best Screenplay in 2006 for Volver, selected In Competition. As President of the Jury in 2017, he awarded the Palme d’Or to The Square directed by Ruben Östlund. Two years later, he presented the very personal Dolor y gloria (Pain and Glory) in which the overwhelming performance by Antonio Banderas merited the actor the Best Actor award, which was presented by the Jury of Alejandro González Iñárritu, thus crowning one of the greatest collaborations in the history of cinema.