Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar isn’t waiting for theaters to go back to normal before he resumes blowing us away with cinematic explorations of the human condition. Shortly after his first English-language film, “The Human Voice,” premiered at the Venice Film Festival, the legendary Oscar-winning reporter told reporters that he’s already chosen his next projects which includes a western and a dystopian set in a world where all the theaters and cultural spaces shut down. You know, science fiction.
During a press conference for “The Human Voice,” Almodóvar told reporters that he’s already written “a different kind of western, which will be very colorful… very theatrical.” The mostly male-centric western genre seems like a surprising career turn for Almodóvar, who’s made a career out of making female-friendly melodramas like “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.”
But the weirdest-sounding, and least surprising project Almodóvar announced was another short film he described as a “dystopia” that looks at the impact on people of a “society when all the theaters and cultural spaces shut down.” Surprising because, like with the western, this genre is a surprising departure for the Spanish filmmaker. Yet it’s not that shocking to see a director who penned a beautiful homage to the cinematic experience early in the pandemic resort to making art that reflects how much we lose when cultural spaces are taken from us.
Though he didn’t specify which was which, Almodóvar said both the dystopia and the western would be short productions — one 45-minutes-long and the other 12-20 minutes long — that he hopes to make with “the same sense of freedom” he shot “The Human Voice” with.
Before the western and the dystopian short film, Almodóvar is setting up to direct “Madres Paralelas” this October, which reunites him with Penélope Cruz.