Pedro Almodóvar to receive honorary degree from Oxford

Of course, this is not the reason for his prestigious honour – due for presentation at the annual graduation ceremony on June 22 – but is in recognition of his 'outstanding contribution to the arts'.

And the award will come nearly three months after the official release of his 20^th film, Julieta, which hit Spanish screens yesterday (Friday, April 8) and will be aired in the UK on August 26.

So far, it has not received good reviews, but it is early days and few of Almodóvar's works have failed to become box-office successes.

This latest production also reaches Spanish screens just days after the death of the country's oldest and much-loved 'Almodóvar Girl', 85-year-old Chus Lampreave, who usually played endearing, mithering, outspoken housewife-and-mother-type roles.

As well as Oxford's 'ordinary' graduates, the June ceremony will see nine other 'distinguished men and women' receiving honorary degrees – among them, economist Paul Krugman and architect Kazuyo Sejima.

This will be the third degree Almodóvar has achieved without any studying, but as a result of his long and massively-successful film career and efforts in putting Spanish cinema on the world map.

The most recent was in 2009 from Harvard (pictured), and the first one was in 1998 from the University of Castilla-La Mancha – a regional college based on four campuses in the provincial capital cities of Cuenca, Albacete, Ciudad Real and Toledo.

Almodóvar is no stranger to prizegivings, having clocked up a string of awards – most notably those he earned for All about my mother, Talk to her, and Volver ('Coming back', although the original title is kept in the English version), the first and third of these starring Hollywood's most famous Spanish actress Penélope Cruz.

The actor, who was born in Castilla-La Mancha, won an Oscar in 1988 for Women on the verge of a nervous breakdown.