Pedro Almodóvar laid into US president Donald Trump at Film at Lincoln Center in New York on Monday, saying, “You will go down in history as the greatest mistake of our time.”
Accepting the 50th Chaplin Award in recognition of what FLC said was the Spanish auteur’s “spirited and bold storytelling with a distinctive and colorful visual style”, Almodóvar also spoke out in support of trans rights and Harvard University’s ongoing battle with the US administration.
He sent wishes to everyone in Spain and Portugal affected by Monday’s now-resolved blackout.
“I doubted if it was appropriate to come to a country ruled by a narcissistic authoritarian lunatic, who doesn’t respect human rights, and who it seems nothing can stop in his race to replace the fragile world balance,” Almodóvar told the audience in Alice Tully Hall.
“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 twists the words, claiming they mean the opposite of what they do. Immigrants are not criminals. Zelensky is not a dictator, Putin is. It was Russia that invaded Ukraine.”
The director of Talk To Her, All About My Mother, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, Volver, and most recently The Room Next Door, continued: “Mr. Trump, I’m talking to you […] 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 in this beginning of the century. You will go down in history as a catastrophe.”
Almodóvar recalled growing up in Spain under the Francisco Franco dictatorship, and spoke about his mother who taught him among other things that “fiction completes reality and makes it more liveable”.
The filmmaker was joined by longtime collaborator Rossy de Palma, who drew applause when she walked on stage to open a bottle of water for Almodóvar, as well as John Turturro, John Waters, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and Dua Lipa.
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