“You will go down in history as the greatest mistake of our time. Your naiveté is only comparable to your violence. You will go down in history as one of the greatest damages to humanity… You will go down in history as a catastrophe.” was the message film director Pedro Almodóvar had for US President Donald Trump.
The acclaimed director was in New York receiving the prestigious Chaplin Award for his body of work in filmmaking on Monday evening.
The gay director said he had considered whether it was appropriate for him to travel to the USA for the ceremony, saying the Trump administration had reminded him of his childhood in Spain under the dictator Franco.
“I doubted if it was appropriate to come to a country ruled by a narcissistic authority, who doesn’t respect human rights,” he said. “Trump and his friends, millionaires and oligarchs, cannot convince us that the reality we are seeing with our own eyes is the opposite of what we are living, however much he may twist the words, claiming that they mean the opposite of what they do. Immigrants are not criminals. It was Russia that invaded Ukraine.”
He said Spain’s return to being a democracy in the 1970s and 1980’s had been a key factor in his career as a film director.
“It is impossible to explain what that feeling of absolute liberty meant for a young person who wanted to make films.”
At the ceremony stars lined up to pay tribute to the talents of the Spanish director whose work often has included gay, queer and transgender characters. Dua Lipa, John Waters, Martin Scorsese, and Mikhail Baryshnikov were all on hand to sing the directors praises.
Also at the ceremony were three films stars closely associated with Almodóvar; Antonio Banderas who got his start in the Spain in the directors early works, Rossy de Palma, who has featured in many of his films, Tilda Swinton who starred in his most recent release The Room Next Door.
The Champin Award in an annual honour given to a filmmaker by The Lincoln Center in New York. The first award was given in 1972 to Charles Chaplin who returned to the USA after a long period of exile. The awards were later renamed in his honour.
An impressive list of actors and directors have received the award including Fred Astaire, Alfred Hitchcock, George Cukor, Fredrico Fellini, Jane Fonda, Laurence Olivier, and Helen Mirren.
Last year Viola Davis became the first Black woman to receive the award. Few people of colour are among the awards alumni. Actor and director Sidney Potier was honoured in 2011, and the career of director Spike Lee was praised in 2021, while actor Morgan Freeman who the recipient in 2016.
