After recent criticism by American director Quentin Tarantino towards Italian filmmaking, Spanish director Almodovar says Tarantino suffers from "verbal incontinence".

"I don't think he knows Italy's auteur filmmakers of today". Almodovar, who has won Academy Awards for Talk to Her (best screenplay, 2003) and All About My Mother (best foreign film, 2000), was speaking at a ceremony at which Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli made him a 'Commendatore', one of Italy's top honors.
The director will also receive the best European film prize Thursday at the 2007 David di Donatello awards - Italy's Oscars - for Volver.

"There are only two countries where I don't have to explain what putting passion into your cinema means - Italy and Spain.

"These are cultures where emotion, instinct and the art of getting by and suffering to express talent are part of the national DNA". Almodovar acclaims Italian cinema for being extremely influential in his career.

"Quentin is a good director, a cinema enthusiast and great expert on all the world's trash," he said.

"But you shouldn't take his comments too seriously because he suffers from a form of verbal incontinence and he is actually nostalgic for the cinema of Umberto Lenzi, Mario Bava and Lucio Fulci.

"When I went to the cinema as a child in the 1950s I was most attracted to the films that portrayed real life honestly, without filters of form and style," he said.

"This is the recipe of the best Italian cinema. I tried to take inspiration from that lesson, putting heart and brains to the fore, like (Federico) Fellini, for example". Tarantino also recognized Italian cinema as one of his main sources of inspiration - before condemning its current condition at Cannes.

"I really loved the Italian movies of the 1960s and 1970s. What happened? It's a real tragedy," said the American director.

Quentin's comments also brought upon him a chastise from Italian film star Sophia Loren: "How dare he talk about Italian cinema when he doesn't even know anything about American cinema," the 73-year-old said.