The Academy awards Jaime de Armiñán the Goya of Honor

The president of the Academy, Enrique González Macho, has highlighted Armiñán's cinema for his gentle humor, his intelligence and the masterful fluidity of his dialogues.

This Monday, the octogenarian director Jaime de Armiñán (Madrid, 1927) collected the Goya of Honor with which the Film Academy recognizes a lifetime dedicated to film and television.

The president of the Academy, Enrique González Macho, has highlighted Armiñán's cinema for his gentle humor, his intelligence and the masterful fluidity of his dialogues. "Of the entire audience, Jaime, you are the youngest. You have always said that awards don't change anything, it's true, but your films have. Thank you very much for the cinema you have given us," concluded González Macho.

After the screening of fragments of some of his most representative films, Armiñán received the award from actress Julia Gutiérrez Caba.

The director of Mi Querida Señorita admitted in an ironic tone that "when Enrique González Macho called me to tell me about the award I thought: 'I'm going to tell him it's about time they gave it to me', but I didn't tell him...".

In his speech, Armiñán recalled his childhood and his relationship with the circus, theater and, of course, cinema. He remembered, as the germ of his cinema, the matinees of the Price circus where he could see Aurora Bautista, for example, reciting at the top of a trapeze or Carmen Sevilla in a white faralaes costume inside the lion's cage dancing sevillanas... "Although what surprised me most was seeing Alfredo Marquerie, an implacable critic of the time, who took off some very thick glasses he was wearing, extended his arms, prayed, and that that he was an atheist, at the same time that a man began to throw knives at him...Being critical, doing that was having courage...", Armiñán joked.

Jaime de Armiñán has dedicated his honorary Goya to the nominees for the 28th edition of the Goya Awards, wishing them “great success not only in prizes, but in money, joy and love.”

González Macho has highlighted that, about his cinema, "what is most appreciated - he said - is his kind sense of humor" and has valued him as an "analyst of personal relationships" and for "the fluidity of the dialogues" in his films.