Pedro Almodovar was born on 24 September 1949 in La Calzad de Calatrava of La Mancha, one of the poorest parts of Spain. He went to a school run by Silesian priests, an experience which distanced him from God at a very early age. Bored by life in the country, he went to Madrid at the age of 16 where, after doing various odd jobs, he became a clerk in the Spanish telephone company. Office work in the daytime, but in the evenings and on holidays, the young country boy became actively engaged in the arts. He directed and acted in small theatrical groups, set up a satirical rock-punk group named Almodovar y McNamara, wrote humorous articles in comic culture magazines, invented the character of Patty Difusa, wrote two books (Fire in the Belly and Patty Difusa and Other Stories), as well as photo romances, porn romances and punk comics of a subversive character. But he mainly turned out many humor-ous films on super-8 film which he showed at special screenings which soon developed into real "happenings".

It was in 1979, a time when the movida (an almost spontaneous and anarchic movement of protest and mockery) was flourishing, when Almodovar, with the help of Carmen Maura and other friends, turned out his first feature film Pepi, Luci, Bom. Its description as the worst-made Spanish movie helped it gain cult status with great success in post-midnight performances. Both Pepi... and his subsequent picture, Labyrinth of Passion (1982), reflect the delirious climate of blissfulness and anarchic madness which typified the movida years, a time when many believed Madrid was the New York of Europe, a city open to all and to everything, and where anything could happen. These two pictures hit the Spanish cinema like a bolt from the blue, not only because they exceeded every norm but mainly because they proved there could be a Spanish cinema which did not need the rationale of anti-Francoism in order to be alive, modern, anti-conformist and subversive in its ideas. At the same time, they provided the training needed by the self-taught director in the disciplines of regular production.

The transition to a more mature style became apparent in Dark Habits (1983), Almodovar's first venture into melodrama, and mainly with What Have I Done to Deserve This? (1984), possibly the best movie made on the subject of the emancipation of the housewife-mother from housework and sexploitation. Matador (1986) and The Law of Desire (1987) are the first exclusively "male" films by Almodovar and, at the same time, the first which one could call indicative of a gay sensitivity: their aes-thetistic, neo-baroque and somewhat degenerate aspect re-minds one of Fassbinder - an impression which is strengthened by the intense melodramatic outbursts and the admixture of elements of police intrigue.

But, immediately afterwards, Almodovar proved he was not a director to whom any labels could be attached with his Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1987), a madrileno comedy which has the mad pace of classical American comedy and which enjoyed a tremendous success world wide. Not only because it is a paean to a woman betrayed by man, who finds her self-respect through various trials, but mainly because of its bright, multicoloured and contemporary form. Considering that the aestheticism of publicity is part of the big-city culture of modern society, Almodovar incorporates it in the pictorial whole of the film, making it the trade mark of new trends in the Spanish cinema and remaining to this day one of the director's finest achievements.

Startling once again both friends and enemies, Almadovar then came up with Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1989), a completely "politically incorrect" love story with a half-schizophrenic hero who kidnaps a film star, holds her prisoner and finally succeeds in winning her love. A melodrama in its plainest form, High Heels (1991) relates the pain of parting and abandonment and the nostalgia of reunion, which is achieved in the most extreme ways. The director's flirtation with the codes of a police thriller, secondary in High Heels, acquires primary importance in Kika (1993), one of Almodovar's most unclassifiable films, which was strongly attacked for its 10-minute rape scene, but which also became the object of lengthy analyses of the director's speculation on the relation between television and reality.

After trying to undermine various cinematographic devices in Kika, Almodovar chose the simplicity of a purely feminine melodrama with My Secret Flower (1995) which was very close to the questions posed in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown but with no trace of hysteria. His next film, Live Flesh (1997), marks a new development in Almodovar's work. For the first time, he introduces very specific references to the contemporary political and social history of Spain, without at the same time distancing himself from all those familiar elements (police intrigue, improbable coincidences, the law of desire governing the motives of his heroes) which identify his work.

With All About My Mother (1999) Almovodar has matured as a person and an artist, and combines his various themes to produce a superb cinematographic song of praise for womanhood ("There is nothing more beautiful than a woman in tears" he says); the woman as mother, the woman as actress (on the stage or in film), but mainly the woman in whose nature it is to be an actress, since her life is an endless impersonation (in the positive sense of the term) on the stage of reality. All About My Mother was honoured with the Best Director Award at the 1999 Cannes Festival, received the highest acclaim and constituted a well-deserved reward for an artist whose work began in the anarchic climate of the movida, appeared at one point to be heading towards a typically gay aestheticism and subject-matter, and shortly afterward surfaced with woman as its axis, to become an intrinsic witness to the daily anxiety, agony and problems of the contemporary individual as seen by an incorrigibly optimistic creator who describes himself as the best director from... La Mancha.