Pedro Almodóvar returned this Tuesday to the Cannes festival to compete for the Palme d’Or with Bitter Christmas, seven years after Pain and Glory, and the reception could not have been more emotional. “I am speechless, very moved. It is difficult to speak in this situation, but I recognize that of all the audiences I know from the screenings of my films, the viewers in this great hall are, I believe, the warmest and most affectionate I have ever known,” he said with great emotion after the screening of his new work in the grand Lumière theater.
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“It is a huge emotion simply to set foot in the hall and hear that even before seeing the film you are congratulating us is a great act of generosity. I don’t know how to thank you for that generosity that I have felt every time I have been here in this great Palais and that I will miss a lot in the future when I have to watch it alone on television and I won’t be there,” he concluded amid the applause of the attendees, who gave him a standing ovation for nearly seven minutes. This Wednesday will be the time to speak with the press.
The last time the Manchegan filmmaker attended the Croisette was in 2023 with the medium-length film Strange Way of Life, starring Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal. Dressed in yellow, Almodóvar was accompanied by the entire cast of Bitter Christmas, which premiered in Spanish theaters last March: Bárbara Lennie, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, Patrick Criado, Victoria Luengo, Milena Smit, Quim Gutiérrez, and Rossy de Palma. The singer Amaia, who performs a song in this story in which the Oscar-winning director delves into autofiction, also attended.
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The film focuses on the writing process of a film director (played by Sbaraglia and who is an obvious reflection of Almodóvar) preparing the script for his new movie. The film mixes the story of the director, who has Aitana Sánchez Gijón as his assistant, with that of the script he is preparing, about a film director who now works in advertising (Lennie). With Bitter Christmas, it is the seventh time that the most international Spanish director competes for the Palme d’Or, an award that still eludes him.
He competed with ‘All About My Mother’ (1999), ‘Volver’ (2006), ‘Broken Embraces’ (2009), ‘The Skin I Live In’ (2011), Julieta (2016), ‘Pain and Glory’ (2019) and now with ‘Bitter Christmas’. And he has won the best director award for ‘All About My Mother’ and the best screenplay for ‘Volver’, as well as acting awards for the actresses of that film. Antonio Banderas was also recognized for ‘Pain and Glory’. Bitter Christmas is the second Spanish film to participate in the Cannes competition after The Distinguished Citizen, by Rodrigo Sorogoyen. Next Thursday will be the turn of The Black Ball, by Los Javis.
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