“Here is my life.” Pedro Sánchez Castrejón, not the president of the Government but the commissioner of Madrid, Almodóvar girlacknowledges to this newspaper that those words from Pedro Almodóvar made him understand that the legendary filmmaker had been genuinely enthusiastic about the exhibition. The man from La Mancha is one of the 78,489 people who have turned the exhibition into the most visited in the more than 40 years of history of the Conde Duque Contemporary Culture Center, one of the municipal spaces that the City Council has tried to promote with more effort during the period of José Luis Martínez-Almeida in the mayor’s office.
Despite this, the councilor has not visited an exhibition open to the public for five months: from June 15 to November 17. The mayor of Madrid stated in September that he had “stopped listening” to Almodóvar for a long time, who had previously reproached him for not visiting an exhibition that is about the filmmaker’s filmography, but also about the capital itself.
“We, in Madrid, appreciate and value Pedro Almodóvar in his capacity as a film director and we made that exhibition,” Almeida added during the controversy. But, as explained by the Oscar winner for All about my mother and talk to herthe initiative received the green light during the mandate of Manuela Carmena: “The mayor of Madrid has not gone to see it. These are things that happen. It was approved during Carmena’s time, but it could not be done then and it was their turn.”
The proposal, however, did not come from the Executive itself. As Sánchez Castrejón (who is also a resident of the area) reveals, it was he himself who raised the idea in Conde Duque’s suggestion box: “A group of officials were the ones who approved it. No politician has commissioned it from me, neither from the left nor from the right, even though it was approved during the Government of Manuela Carmena.”
“Almodóvar is our most international artist, he is a cultural milestone and our great cultural ambassador. People know Madrid for its movies. Almeida already said that he values him as a filmmaker, and that is how he should be valued. He is the most important filmmaker in Spain. He is not important for his political ideas, but for his cinema,” he explains.
“Beyond these crossed statements, the mayor does not go to all the exhibitions held in Madrid,” Almeida’s cabinet argues to Somos Malasaña. However, as this newspaper has been able to verify, the councilor went on June 20 to inaugurate an exhibition by the artist Javier de Juan also located in Conde Duque, a few meters from Almodóvar’s, and decided not to go to see the one dedicated to the link with Madrid of the director of pain and glory.
A milestone that dwarfs previous exhibitions in Paris or Los Angeles
Aside from the controversy, Sánchez Castrejón is left with the emotion of the great response experienced in recent months: “I assumed that it would be of interest, as it was the first Almodóvar exhibition of its kind in Spain, after others at the Museum of the Academy of Art. Hollywood in Los Angeles or the French Cinematheque in Paris. But about 50,000 people came to this last one, so having 50% more visitors is incredible.” Madrid, Almodóvar girl It has achieved 23,000 more visitors than the set of temporary exhibitions that Conde Duque hosted throughout 2023.
He does admit that despite the great expectations, the enormous response has surprised El Deseo, the Almodóvar brothers’ production company, and the Madrid City Council itself. The total visits far exceed those of previous exhibitions in Conde Duque dedicated to Goya, Picasso or the prestigious photographer Chema Madoz. “We knew that the connection between Almodóvar’s cinema and Madrid was going to be a sure success and it has been, with the visit of thousands of Madrid residents and visitors from other parts of the city and the world,” he says. the person in charge of the Culture area in the municipal Executive, Marta Rivera de la Cruz.
For Sánchez Castrejón, the reasons for its success are varied: “It is because it had never been done before, because the exhibition had a clear narrative and because of important curatorial work, which tells the story of Madrid and Pedro at the same time. “People went and repeated, they read the complete texts.”
The curator admits that it helped that several milestones occurred during the months of the exhibition: “Some thanks to the fact that the expo was combined with walks through Almodóvar’s Madrid, with the map of the locations or a film series with all the sessions are full.” Others more uncontrollable: “The Golden Lion to The next room it helped a lot. “El Deseo chose the months of the exhibition and they coincided with the film.”
“Many young people have now discovered his cinema and his older movies on the big screen, also people from other provinces and abroad (Poland, Portugal, France…),” he adds. Regarding what is to come, he only provides some details: “There have been formal requests to take the exhibition outside, but this was intended for Conde Duque and was not designed to travel. Yes, I am thinking about other projects, the feedback from the citizens has been very good and there have been requests to make the expo permanent. I have more ideas, but at the moment I can’t specify anything.”
“The exhibition has had a national and international impact, also in media of all ideological colors,” emphasizes Sánchez Castrejón to once again vindicate the transversal value of Almodóvar. “People have known how to differentiate an ideological position from a cultural interest that is above it. The mayor does not usually go to these events, nor have Carmen Maura or Penelope Cruz. The people of Madrid had to go and that’s how it happened,” he concludes.
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