17/05/2006

Pedro Almodóvar has just been awarded the Asturias Prince Award in the Arts category, attributed each year by Prince Philippe’s Foundation to a cultural personality whose work has achieved major recognition at the international level. Other winners, in the categories of Science, Letters and Social Sciences, are to be announced in the upcoming weeks. The ceremony will take place next autumn in the city of Oviedo.

The news surprised Almodóvar as he was about to leave for Cannes, where his highly-anticipated latest comedy Volver [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Agustín Almodóvar
interview: Carmen Maura
interview: Pedro Almodóvar
interview: Pénélope Cruz
film profile] will screen in competition next Friday. "I guess every time I receive an award it's because I have always been me, wildly me. They are awarding somebody who comes from the gutter, from the Madrid underground of the 80s", said the director, who also stressed the support of "over 100 people", including actors Carmen Maura and Félix Rotaeta, who helped him direct his first feature.

Almodóvar is the third Spanish director to receive the Asturias Prince Award, after Fernando Fernán Gómez and Luis García Berlanga.