Pedro Almodóvar vindicates cinema upon receiving the Sant Jordi Honorary Award: "I cannot conceive my life without making films"

The director Pedro Almodóvar was one of the great protagonists of the 70th edition of the Premios RNE Sant Jordi de Cinematografía, where he received the Honorary Award and left one of the most forceful phrases of the night: “I do not conceive my life without making films and neither do I conceive my future without them”. 

During the gala, held in Barcelona, the filmmaker took stock of his more than four decades of career, assuring that he has had “much more success and many more awards” than he imagined when he started. His speech was marked by a firm defense of cinema as a vital vocation and as a form of expression inseparable from his identity.

Almodóvar also recalled his beginnings in the 80s, in full cultural effervescence after the arrival of democracy in Spain, a stage he defined as key in his career: his work, he affirmed, is “direct daughter of that freedom”, underlining the importance of the country's social context in his filmography. 

The recognition of the Sant Jordi —one of the most veteran awards of cinema in Spain— highlights a fundamental career for the international projection of Spanish cinema, marked by iconic titles and an unmistakable style that has influenced generations of filmmakers. 

Visibly moved, the director closed his speech with a wish: to keep filming and, if possible, to do it again in Barcelona, thus reaffirming his bond with cinema and with the audience that has accompanied him throughout his career.