Director, screenwriter and producer Pedro Almodóvar will receive a Donostia Award at the 72nd San Sebastian Festival. The honorary award recognizes his extraordinary contribution to the world of cinema. The tribute ceremony will take place at the festival prior to the screening of his latest movie, The Room Next Door (La habitación de al lado), his first feature film in English, starring Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore, which will compete for the Golden Lion at the upcoming Venice Festival. Swinton will be on stage to present the award to him.
“My career began in San Sebastian in the year 1980 and since then I have returned to the festival often, with or without a film. And I have always immensely enjoyed myself. I have given the Donostia Award to Al Pacino, Woody Allen and Antonio Banderas. This year they are giving it to me, and I am delighted and grateful. I mean it, it’s an honor. San Sebastian is one of the cities where the cinema is celebrated with enormous enthusiasm. More than ever, at these times, we need the complicity of the spectators, and their presence in the film theatres. It is a dream to attend a festival like this, where the cinemas are always full.”
Pedro Almodóvar’s career, which includes more than a dozen short films including The Human Voice (La voz humana) (2020) and Extraña forma de vida / Strange Way of Life (2023), along with more than thirty feature films, winning more than 200 nominations and almost 170 awards.
Among his accolades are two Academy Awards, two Golden Globes, seven European Film Academy Awards, five BAFTAs, four Césars, five Goyas and two David de Donatellos. He has received accolades at the Cannes, Berlin, Venice and San Sebastian festivals, as well as being the subject of a homage at the MOMA. He has also received recognitions including the Jean Renoir Award, has been chosen for the David Lean Lecture and named doctor honoris causa at Harvard and Oxford, as well as having been honored with the National Medal of Arts in the USA, the Spanish Gold Medal for Merit in the Fine Arts, the Prince of Asturias Medal of the Arts and the French Knight of the Order of the Legion of Honour.
Pedro Almodóvar’s cinema is remarkable for the writing of its female characters, the directing of its actors, its courage in addressing subjects such as the LGBTIQ+ universe, religion, sex, addiction and historical memory, and his political commitment, which has driven him to take a public stance against war and extreme right-wing discourse.
In addition to bringing movies, Almodóvar has backed the San Sebastian Festival with his presence by attending the event’s 50th anniversary (2002) and presenting the Donostia Award to Al Pacino (1996), Woody Allen (2004) and Antonio Banderas (2008). In 2024 Almodóvar himself will receive the distinction from the actress Tilda Swinton, actor of the short film The Human Voice (La voz humana) and his latest movie, The Room Next Door (La habitación de al lado).
The Room Next Door (La habitación de al lado)
PEDRO ALMODÓVAR (Spain)
Country(ies) of production: Spain
Cast: Tilda Swinton, Julianne Moore, John Turturro
Ingric and Marta were close friends in their youth. They worked together at the same magazine, but Ingrid went on to become an autofiction novelist while Martha became a war reporter, and they were separated by the circumstances of life. After years of being out of touch, they meet again in an extreme but strangely sweet situation.