Birthplace: Calzada de Calatrava, La Mancha, Spain
biography
The most internationally popular and important Spanish director since Luis Bunuel, Pedro Almodovar fled the stifling Roman Catholicism of his provincial La Mancha at the age of 17 to do battle with the windmills of Madrid. Lacking the money to enter college, he peddled books and made jewelry before settling into a decade-long run as a clerk at the National Telephone Company during which he contributed comic strips and stories to underground magazines like STAR, VIBORA and VIBRACIONES. As the most visible exponent of "la movida" (the cultural ferment in Madrid post-Franco), he would eventually
