Tilda Swinton and Pedro Almodóvar may have only collaborated on one short film and one feature — “The Human Voice” and their recent Golden Lion-winning melodrama “The Room Next Door” — but it seems they’ve already formed a relationship that will last the rest of their lives. As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, Swinton presented Almodóvar with a Donostia award at San Sebastián International Film Festival in the filmmaker’s native Spain this week. The actress praised Almodóvar for putting his work out into the world, so that it may find a place to grow inside all those who watch.
“You have planted in each one of us a garden of treasure,” she said. “Your work is good for the world, we thank you for it from the bottom of our hearts. You will live forever. We lucky humans — you make it easier to be one, in spite of everything.”
Accepting the award, Almodóvar made it clear that he does not see the lifetime achievement award as any kind of ending for his career — because to him, creating is the only life that feels worth living.
“At my age, a prize like Donostia can indicate the end of a road and a reward for having traveled it,” Almodóvar said. “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.”
In a separate piece by Variety on the press conference for the award ceremony, Swinton was reported as having heaped personal affection on Almodóvar and the effect he’s had on her despite the brief amount of time they’ve been in one another’s lives.
“I’m sitting here beside him thinking, what a magical blessing in my life it is to have found him,” Swinton said. “I have known him less long than other people at this table, less long than many of you in this room, but he’s already an absolutely central part of my life, not only to do with the my daily life, but also he’s such an endorsement of everything that made me a filmmaker in the first place.”
Specifically, Swinton believes Almodóvar continues to be a “pirate” in a profession where there aren’t enough people “who want pirates.”
“He’s like a young filmmaker. He makes a film with all the gusto and passion and is present in a way that I think very many filmmakers are encouraged to give up. And we audience, we want that. We want that feeling of presence in a filmmaker,” said Swinton. “So when a young audience, and there are many more coming along the road who are yet to be born, what they will find in Pedro’s cinema, 23 of his films so far, is this young spirit, this absolute, dauntless passion and desire and belief in cinema as a source of notion. He’s a real lover of cinema, and that’s what the audience wants, particularly a young audience.”
Sony Pictures Classic will release “The Room Next Door” in New York and Los Angeles on December 20, followed by a limited expansion on Christmas day, and a wide release in January 2025.