Tilda Swinton Lauds Pedro Almodóvar as Filmmaker Picks Up San Sebastian’s Donostia Award

Filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar was welcomed to San Sebastian’s Kursaal Theater with a fierce reception on Thursday as the Spaniard picked up a Donostia Award for his “extraordinary contributions to cinema.”

Tilda Swinton, who stars in Almodóvar’s latest feature The Room Next Door — which won Venice’s Golden Lion after a whopping 17-minute standing ovation in Italy — joined the director onstage to celebrate his achievements.

“At my age, a prize like Donostia can indicate the end of a road and a reward for having traveled it,” Almodóvar said after raucous applause. “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.”

Swinton was full of praise for her colleague. She said to him: “You have planted in each one of us a garden of treasure… Your work is good for the world, we thank you for it from the bottom of our hearts. You will live forever.” She added: “We lucky humans — you make it easier to be one, in spite of everything.”

Almodóvar is intimately tied to the San Sebastian Film Festival, having premiered his sophomore feature Pepi, Luci, Bom there in 1980. He spoke candidly earlier in the day at the fest’s press conference: “When I arrived at the hotel yesterday, I realized that in these 44 years since, things had changed enormously, generally in the world but also in my life. But this city continues to provoke very deep emotions in me 44 years later.”

“I couldn’t stop crying and had tears running down my cheeks,” he continued. “It’s been much more emotional than I expected — almost excessively emotional.”

He returned in 1982 with Labyrinth of Passions, his first collaboration with actor Antonio Banderas and cinematographer Ángel Luis Fernandez. The film made him a talent to watch.

He would go on to celebrate international success with Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988), which swept Spain’s Goya Awards and secured the director his first Oscar nomination; All About My Mother (1999), which won the Academy Award for best foreign-language film; and Talk to Her (2002), which was nominated for two Oscars and won Almodóvar the best original screenplay honor.

In addition to his many collaborations with Banderas, Almodóvar is closely associated with Spanish star Penélope Cruz, who worked with him on such features as Volver (2006), Pain and Glory (2019), which also starred Banderas, and Parallel Mothers (2021).

Javier Bardem and Cate Blanchett also picked up Donostia Awards at this year’s San Sebastian Film Festival, which runs from Sept. 20-28.