Euthanasia should be allowed 'all over the world', says film director Pedro Almodóvar

The acclaimed Spanish film director Pedro Almodóvar has called for euthanasia to be legalised worldwide.

- Catherine Shoard

Almodóvar was speaking before the world premiere of his first English-language feature, The Room Next Door, which stars Tilda Swinton as a journalist with cancer who decides to end her own life and asks an old friend, played by Julianne Moore, to help.

"This movie is in favour of euthanasia," said Almodóvar, 74, at a press conference at the Venice film festival.

"It is something we admire about the character of Tilda, she decides that getting rid of cancer can only be done by making the decision she actually makes.

"If I get there before, cancer will not win over me,' she says. And so she finds a way to reach her objective with the help of her friend, but they have to behave as if they were criminals."