Pedro Almodovar is one the Cannes Film Festival‘s most beloved filmmakers, and has been kicking around the Croisette for so long that he was in France for premiere of “All About My Mother” in 1999 and its return for a retrospective screening in 2017. This year, Almodovar is back to present his eighth film at the festival, the semi-autobiographical “Pain and Glory,” and it looks like it’ll be a strong Competition lineup contender.
Having already opened in Spain to strong reviews, and drawing comparisons to Federico Fellini‘s “8 1/2,” the story follows a film director in his ’60s, who reflects on his life, loves, and art. While this might sound like a self-portrait, Almodovar doesn’t quite see it that way.
“This is not a biopic of me, not even a portrait. Obviously this is a film that starts off with me. I’m at the root of the script I started writing,” he told Variety. “But then when I carried on, it became just like any other film I would have written. You can’t take this film literally, but I have myself been down all those paths trodden by the character played by Antonio in the film, and I know them all in depth.”
Here’s the official synopsis: PAIN AND GLORY tells of a series of reencounters experienced by Salvador Mallo, a film director in his physical decline. Some of them in the flesh, others remembered: his childhood in the 60s, when he emigrated with his parents to a village in Valencia in search of prosperity, the first desire, his first adult love in the Madrid of the 80s, the pain of the breakup of that love while it was still alive and intense, writing as the only therapy to forget the unforgettable, the early discovery of cinema, and the void, the infinite void that creates the incapacity to keep on making films. Pain and Glory talks about creation, about the difficulty of separating it from one’s own life and about the passions that give it meaning and hope. In recovering his past, Salvador finds the urgent need to recount it, and in that need he also finds his salvation.
Starring Almodovar regulars Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz, the film is gearing up for its Cannes debut and you can get an early taste with three clips below.
“Pain and Glory” opens via Sony Pictures Classics on October 4th.
