Pedro Almodóvar receives Donostia Award

Pedro Almodóvar with his Donostia Award Photo: Courtesy of San Sebastian Film Festival/Inaki Luis

Director Pedro Almodóvar was honoured with a Donotia Award last night at San Sebastian Film Festival 44 years after he first brought a film to its New Directors section.

His debut Pepi, Luci, Bom was at the festival in 1980 and his latest, The Room Next Door, starring Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore, is also screening, fresh from his Venice Film Festival Golden Lion win.

Swinton was on hand at the ceremony to present the award to the director, who also celebrated his 75th birthday this week. She plays Martha in Almodóvar's first English language feature, a terminally ill former war reporter who asks an old friend (Moore) to accompany her as she prepares to take her own life.

Tilda Swinton and Pedro Almodóvar at the Donostia ceremony Photo: Courtesy of San Sebastian Film Festival/Nora Jauregui

At the press conference ahead of the ceremony he said it had been quite an overwhelming experience. “It’s been much more emotional that I expected - almost excessively emotional,” he said.

During the ceremony, Swinton, who also featured in Almodóvar's short The Human Voice, said: "Your work is good for the world, we thank you for it from the bottom of our hearts. You will live forever."

The director said: “At my age, a prize like Donostia can indicate the end of a road and a reward for having traveled it. But I don’t live it like that. For me, cinema is a blessing or a curse. I can’t think of any other way of life if it’s not writing or directing.”

His films have appeared frequently at the festival down the years, including Labyrinth Of Passion, which competed in the Official Competition, The Flower Of My Secret, which appeared out of competition, and a host of other films including All About My Mother and Bad Education, which featured in the Made In Spain strand.

Almodóvar ended his speech with a plea: "Let’s do everything possible to make the great tragedies, the everyday pain, the lack of understanding, the lies, the lack of empathy, the social injustice, the hatred, all the imaginable negative things, belong to fiction and allow real life to exist fairly, in peace, and highly entertained by the fictions that will only exist on our screens. I know I’m asking too much, but that’s the way I’ve always been, since arriving in Madrid in 1970, with the intention of directing movies. Thank you very much for this award and thank you for hearing me out."