• Interview.Not in my worst dreams of youth I imagined that we would be like today "

Almodóvar says that 30 years ago right here, in the Lido, he met Sergio Leone and Lina Wertmüller. The two were part of the jury of the Mostra, the first of them as president. The manchego presented the competition 'Women on the verge of a nervous breakdown'. Both the veteran director of 'spaghetti-westerns' and the Italian, the first woman to be nominated for an Oscar as best director, declared her enthusiasm for Madrid's comedy. Then, after the days, the Golden Lion went to 'The Legend of the Holy Drinker', by Ermanno Olmi. For 'Women ...' it was the recognition for the best script . "I think that if you live long enough, you end up being right. I feel that this Golden Lion for the whole race is that prize that I did not receive, but with 31 years of delay, " Almodóvar declares at a press conference hours before being recognized With all the honors.

Before the press, the 69-year-old director complied with the ritual of thanks. And he did, as he plays, in his own way. Without letting go of the opportunity for everything, from politics (less) as melancholy (something else). The first time he stepped on the Lido was in 1983 and it was, as he acknowledges, his baptism as an international filmmaker. "I remember that the director of the festival did not want my film to be. Gian Luigo Rondi, a Christian Democrat, seemed obscene, but it was such a scandal that was mounted in the press that he had no choice." It refers to 'Between Darkness', the comedy of nuns, tigers and various addictions.

Then came the selection of 'Women ...' and everything was different. "I felt, above all, very proud to represent an ultramodern Spain. You saw Loles León or Rossy de Palma or any member of the cast ...", he recalls and, in a start of calculated nostalgia, dares to give only a brushstroke on how things have changed: "Before there was no talk of diversity, but life was very diverse. Spain woke up from a tremendous dictatorship of 40 years and the most important thing of that time was the fact of having lost fear." And he continues: "With the power of being a director I have always imposed that variety that was in life. All sexual orientations were welcome in my cinema and all my characters, whatever they were, have always enjoyed moral autonomy. If we go back to 1979, the change taking place in Spain was fascinating. Madrid's street and night were a real university and I trained in it. My films taught that and showed that we lived in a real democracy. "

- Is it now different? Are we still so ultramodern?

-There is still a modern and contemporary Spain. Of course it exists. It is so modern that it has what any other European country has everything, even a far-right party . And this is what it is. Although I don't know if that's modern.

And here.

Almodóvar tells us that he started making films without knowing anything about cinematographic language; that his only obsession was that the story be understood. Only in the third film, in which he took to Venice, he began to be aware of the way of talking about the images. And made the discovery, he fell, he says, "in love." "I have never been worried about having my own style. I make the stories that are born of me. And they are born in a completely independent way. I don't think about the market or anything else. I work in extreme freedom and that is the case since the first film." . He also confesses that the color of his films has to do with the nostalgia of the first films he saw in Technicolor and the gray of the place where he was born. "La Mancha that I remember was a very conservative, almost Calvinist place. There was very little color in people's clothes. I don't remember seeing the color red in my childhood. I only remember the black of mourning worn by women for decades. Then I discovered that this aridity was beautiful. And that's why the color. Like a reaction. "

And having said that, again, he recalled Sergio Leone's words about the Golden Lion that was not and that, now, finally, it is. "But it's not a recrimination, be careful."

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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