SOURCE: "Pleasure and the New Spanish Mentality: A Conversation with Pedro Almodóvar," in Film Quarterly, Vol. XLI, No. 1, Fall, 1987, pp. 33-44.

In the following interview, which was conducted on May 25, 1987, Almodóvar discusses his approach to filmmaking, the major themes of his films, and the place of his work in the context of Spanish film.

Following the enthusiastic critical reception of Pedro Almodóvar's La Ley del Deseo (The Law of Desire) at this year's Berlin Film Festival, Spain's oldest and largest-circulation film journal, Fotogramas & Video, ran an editorial saying:

The recent Berlin Festival has demonstrated an important fact for Spanish cinema: the interest that our cinema can arouse abroad, not only at the level of interchange or cultural curiosity, but as an exportable and commercially valid product…. Spanish cinema is trying to leave the national "ghetto" and join a movement that proclaims the necessity and urgency...