A postcard from Gijón Film Festival

Gijón Film Festival logo

It's not very often you can say that Terry Gilliam was your warm-up act but it happened to me last night. Well, that's how I'm going to spin it when I'm 90. As part of the FIPRESCI critic's jury at Gijón Film Festival I was presented on stage at the opening ceremony along with my fellow jurors Spanish culture journalist Eduardo Guillot and Russian critic Victoria Smirnova, right after the former Python - the star of the evening - had received his Prize of Honour (Premio Honorífico) from the festival.

Gilliam, who turns 74 today, also received a rousing Spanish rendition of Happy Birthday. Accepting the award, he said he wanted to share it with director Richard Lester - also at the ceremony to present the Women in Cinema (Premio Mujeres de Cine) award to Costume Designer Yvonne Blake (The Three Musketeers, Superman, Casanova).

He said Lester's work had "inspired him to choose cinema as a vocation" and that in turn had led him to emigrate from the US to England.

British-born Blake, who now lives in Spain, used her acceptance speech to lament chauvinism. She said: "In the 21st century there are still men who treat women as they did 50 years ago - as if they were vases." And added that "something was changing" because now we talk about the day that a woman is president.

Blake's presence also gave me the opportunity to do something I never thought would happen... get my little mitts (very briefly) on an Oscar. I've never been close to one of the statuettes before and this one - which she shared with Antonio Castillo for their work on Franklin J Shaffner's 1971 historical drama Nicholas and Alexandra - was taller than I had imagined. Oscar's costume of gold had a lived-in look that gave him an air of individuality, which seemed perfectly fitting.

The competition here looks set to be a strong one with films originating everywhere from Spain to India and the US to Ireland in contention - more on which, once they've all been watched on November 29. This year's festival - the 52nd hosted by the Asturian festival - also includes a focus on animation - featuring films including Wolfy, The Incredible Secret and Rocks in My Pocket - and special strands dedicated to the work of Filipino director Brillante Mendoza and American animator Bill Plympton.