Acclaimed Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar (Bad Education, All About My Mother) denounced President Donald Trump this week, saying he will “go down in history as the greatest mistake of our time.”
Almodóvar delivered his takedown of the president when accepting the 50th annual Chaplin award from Film at Lincoln Center on Monday in Manhattan.
“I doubted if it was appropriate to come to a country ruled by a narcissistic authority, who doesn’t respect human rights. 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,” the director said.
“Mr. Trump, I’m talking to you, and I hope that you hear what I’m going to say to you,” he continued. “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.”
Almodóvar, whose work often explored transgenderism and sexuality, also spoke out in favor trans rights and said he got into making movies after growing up under the fascist regime of Francisco Franco. He discovered himself as a filmmaker in the ’70s and ’80s as the country moved away from Franco’s ideas.
“It is impossible to explain what that feelings of absolute liberty meant for a young person who wanted to make films,” Almodóvar said.
Read the full article here