busy schedule for director Pedro Almodóvar

This fall, 2024, there is much talk about the star of Spanish cinema, author of around thirty films including “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown”.

Having just published a collection of stories with Flammarion, and having been honored with an exhibition in Madrid, Pedro Almodóva is presenting his latest film this Monday, September 2nd at the Venice Film Festival, where it is in competition. The 74-year-old Spanish director is the author of around thirty feature films, Tie me up has Women on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and won two Oscars (All about my mothere, Oscar for best foreign film in 1999 and Talk to herOscar for best original screenplay in 2003).

On September 26, he will receive the Donostia Honorary Award at the next edition of the San Sebastian Film Festival, which will be held from September 20 to 28.In addition to his artistic talent and his recognizable visual style – his personality shines through from the artistic direction to the soundtrack -, Pedro Almodóvar’s cinema stands out for his writing of female characters, the direction of the actors, the audacity in the approach to themes such as the LGTBIQ+ universe.“, say the organizers of this festival, which will be its 72nd edition this year, in a press release.

A detailed review of this new school year, where there is much talk of this icon of Spanish cinema.

“The Room Next Door”, his first feature film in English

After a short and a medium-length film in the language of Shakespeare, including the queer western Strange Way of Life starring Ethan Hawkes and Pedro Pascal released in 2023, Pedro Almodóvar is releasing his first feature film in English. Called The Room Next Door (in French) The room next door), the film is in competition at the Venice Film Festival in early September. It is a meditation on death and friendship, starring Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore, inspired by a novel by American writer Sigrid Nunez, What is your torment?

In this film set on the East Coast of the United States, in New York State, Tilda Swinton plays a war correspondent suffering from terminal cancer, while Juliane Moore plays a successful novelist friend who agrees to accompany her in her final moments.

Actor John Turturro completes the film’s trio, which reaffirms Almodóvar’s increasingly melancholic cinema, analyzing the fear of death or physical decline. “LThe film addresses the limitless cruelty of wars and highlights the two writers’ unique approaches to depicting reality,” specifies a press release. The release date of the film on French screens is not yet known.

“The Last Dream”, his fragmented autobiography

In this collection of twelve texts presented as a “fragmented, incomplete and somewhat cryptic autobiography“, Pedro Almodóvar combines fictional and autofictional stories, reflections and memories written between the end of the 1960s and 2023. Published on August 28, 2024 by Flammarion, this book is a mixture of fables and intimate confessions in which we detect correspondences with several of his films.

The most poignant story is the one that gives its name to the book. This “last dream” is the one that the filmmaker’s mother confided to him and his brother a few hours before she died in September 1999.Everything she said during that last visit, from the moment she asked us if there was a storm, has remained etched in my memory,” he wrote.

Not devoid of humor, for example in Too many gender changes, when an actor, thinking he is doing the right thing, spends the night at the bedside of the hospitalized director… but prevents him from sleeping with his snorings, This collection sheds light on the Spanish filmmaker known for his fantasy, while also showing his more Saturnian side. “In the 21st century, I am someone darker, more austere and more melancholic, with fewer certainties, more insecurity and fears: that is where I find my inspiration,” he confides.

“Madrid, chica Almodóvar”, her photo exhibition in the Spanish capital

A filmmaker of women, Pedro Almodóvar has a reputation for being faithful to a handful of actresses who play his heroines, but his muse of yesterday and tomorrow is Madrid. Until October 20, the city pays tribute to this love affair with the exhibition Madrid, girl Almodóvar. Through 200 photos from the 23 films or personal archives of the director from Castile-la-Mancha (central Spain), we discover his relationship with his favorite city.

“The story of Pedro Almodóvar and Madrid is a story of mutual love. Pedro Almodóvar is Pedro Almodóvar thanks to Madrid, they are inseparable“, explains to AFP the exhibition curator, Pedro Sánchez. The Spanish capital appears in all his films.”She is the real chica Almodóvar (the Almodóvar girl), much more than Penelope Cruz, Carmen Maura or Marisa Pérez.” he continues.

The exhibition includes a map of Madrid reproducing the 272 locations counted in his films, as well as the places that obsessed the artist: taxis, hardware stores, cemeteries and pharmacies that dot his work. The artifices he used to embellish Madrid, and make it an idyllic capital flooded with colour in his films, are not forgotten.

Madrid, chica Almodóvar, until October 20 at the Conde Duque center in Madrid, from Tuesday to Saturday, free entry (see time slots on the website).