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Study
Spanish in Spain:
Pedro Almodóvar: Learn about Spain at Giralda
Center-SH, Spanish school
Pedro Almodóvar, Spanish Film Director,
born in Calzada de Calatrava, Ciudad Real in 1951.
At the age of 17 Pedro Almodovar moved to Madrid
where, after passing his entry examinations he began work as a
clerk at the National Telephone Company. He immediately made contact
with the cultural circles of the era and devoted his time to theatre
(he was an actor in the troupe "Los Goliardos"), collaborations
in underground magazines and articles on various topics.
From 1974 to 1979 Almodovar began experimenting
with cinema, making short and medium length films in Super 8 before
finally producing his first full-length film 'Pepi, Luci, Bom
and other Girls on the Heap' in 1980.
Pedro Almodovar felt a fascination for ‘kitsch’
aesthetics and pop culture and was a key member of the movement
known as the ‘Movida Madrileña’ in the 1980's.
This movement would result in one of the most important and unique
cultural periods in Spanish history, reuniting filmmakers, poets,
writers, painters, photographers and musicians.
Pedro Almodóvar was one of its most illustrious
representatives, and was known as 'the Spanish Warhol'. Almodovar
also dabbled in music, forming the duo Almodóvar &
McNamara. The 'Movida' was a reflection of the political transition
in Spain and a yearning for freedom both in a political and cultural
sense, the lethargy in Spain provoked by Franco's regime coming
to an end when the PSOE Socialist Party won the 1982 elections.
Madrid was also headed by a socialist mayor,
the ideologist Enrique Tierno Galván, which enabled the
formation and proliferation of a whole range of cultural and artistic
endeavors. This abundance of new energy did not pass unnoticed
in the rest of the world, as was the case with Pedro Almodóvar's
films.
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