Pedro Almodóvar didn't know the finer points of film festival ovations when he first screened a film in competition at Cannes in 1999. As the credits began to roll for his acclaimed melodrama “All About My Mother,” the audience inside the Grand Théâtre Lumière stood and applauded. The acclaim continued to increase and the Spanish author felt overwhelmed with gratitude… for a few moments.
But after about five minutes of cheering and applause, Almodóvar didn't know what to do. He's not a filmmaker given to false modesty, but how long can you enjoy that kind of adoration? You can only smile, wave and join hands for so long. Finally, he gestured to the audience to stop, like, “Okay. Okay. Enough. Let's go have dinner and drinks.”
“Big mistake,” Almodóvar tells me, laughing. “[Actor] Marisa Paredes leaned over and told me: 'Never stop a standing ovation!' I did not have the experience and did not know that the number of minutes of an ovation is very important and is counted. For me five minutes were more than enough. “It's humiliating.”
Almodóvar will bring his new film, “Bitter Christmas,” to Cannes this year, his seventh appearance in competition, a notable career that includes such masterpieces as “Volver,” “Broken Embraces” and “Pain and Glory.” Another film, the dark and bold drama “Bad Education,” opened the festival in 2004, earning so much praise (and, yes, another long ovation) that Quentin Tarantino, president of the jury that year, said to Almodóvar: “Why aren't you in competition? This is a masterpiece! I'd give you the award!”
As it is, Almodóvar's films have a celebrated history at Cannes. “All About My Mother” earned him an honor for directing; “Volver” won the screenplay award and a collective actress award for its cast in 2006; and his frequent collaborator Antonio Banderas won for his starring role in 2019's “Pain and Glory.”
No Palme d'Or… yet. But at 76 years old, Almodóvar shows no signs of slowing down or creative stagnation.
Barbara Lennie, left, and Victoria Luengo in “Bitter Christmas,” directed by Pedro Almodóvar.
(Iglesias Mas / Sony Pictures Classics)
“Bitter Christmas,” which premiered in Spain in March, is an elegantly structured and self-aware film about art that follows Raúl, a filmmaker struggling to finish a script about a cult director dealing with migraines and panic attacks while trying to revive his stalled career. The film alternates between the two narratives, cleverly exploring the ways in which the creators plunder the lives of those they meet in the pursuit of a good story.
Almodóvar says that it is the film “where I have been most cruel to myself.”
“I was observing my own creative process and asking questions about inspiration,” says Almodóvar, speaking via Zoom from his home in Madrid. “I had a little fun doing it.”
Almodóvar sits behind his desk, dressed in a crisp white T-shirt under a tan coat. It's late and the sun filters warmly through the windows of the room, a space he calls his “sanctuary,” where he has written his last 15 films. Behind him is a wall of bookshelves, the closest one housing two Oscars, a British Film Academy award and the Golden Lion he won at the 2024 Venice Film Festival for his first English-language feature, “The Room Next Door.” The awards surround a framed photograph of his beloved mother, Francisca Caballero.
“I don't need awards,” Almodóvar says, “but they are here, watching over my shoulder.”
“You'd be hard pressed to find many filmmakers who have had the quality that he has,” says Michael Barker, co-president and co-founder of Sony Pictures Classics, Almodóvar's longtime North American distribution partner. “As [Jean] Renoir in the 1930s and 1940s is really one of the masters, someone who continues to make films that are consistently intelligent and also really entertaining.”
Over the years, Almodóvar has developed rituals to help him navigate Cannes. Some have fallen by the wayside, like the beach restaurant, now closed, that served the best bouillabaisse. Other traditions, fortunately, remain intact.
“I feel trapped in a tuxedo, like I have claustrophobia,” Almodóvar says, hugging his body as if he were wearing a straitjacket. “So getting dressed before the red carpet, my brother, my nephews and some friends will help. It's an intimate moment shared with loved ones, this ritual of dressing for the ceremony.”
“The other ritual moment,” he continues, “is walking up those red stairs that lead to the big Palais. There's a long hallway there where I met people who later became my friends, people like Tilda Swinton and Jeanne Moreau. And then you have that touching moment when you walk out of that hallway and take that first step into the theater and you get one of the warmest welcomes you've ever received in your life. They haven't even seen the movie and they're already showering you with love.”
It's not a stretch to think that “Bitter Christmas” will get the same warm reception when it's performed at the festival. The film takes its title from an achingly beautiful ranchera by the late Mexican singer Chavela Vargas, a friend of Almodóvar. When the song plays in the film (and yes, it is during Christmas), it prompts a character to alter the course of his life.
(Shayan Asgharnia / For The Times)
“The songs are miraculous in the sense that they seem to speak to the person listening to them,” says Almodóvar. “When that song plays, my film becomes a kind of musical, and in musicals it is possible for a song to change someone.”
Like Stanley Kubrick in “Eyes Wide Shut,” Almodóvar uses the festive lights of the season to contrast the turmoil the film’s characters feel inside. He says he understands his melancholy, since he finds Christmas depressing and every year he looks forward to its end.
“I felt that even when I was a child,” Almodóvar says. “I don't believe in the things that Christmas celebrates, which is why these moments of enormous happiness leave me very melancholic. Furthermore, I live alone, and these festive moments, where people gather in the streets, make me feel alone. I don't necessarily have family obligations and work is interrupted, which is hard for me. Sometimes I start writing, almost desperately, just to occupy the time. I am confined to my house in solitude.”
“Bitter Christmas” contains a couple of sharp notes about the current film economy, with Raúl turning down a lucrative offer to appear at a film festival in Qatar, saying, “not everything has a price.” Almodóvar found himself in a similar situation, rejecting a proposal for a Saudi festival. (“I'm almost ashamed to say how much they offered me,” he says.)
For Almodóvar, success is defined both by what you can reject and by the freedom to pursue what satisfies you.
“I will never have to become a reality show character to make ends meet,” says Almodóvar. “I have the luxury of saying no.”
Later in the film, Raúl's former assistant criticizes his script and suggests that he remove a subplot he took from his personal life. Cut it, he says, and give it to Netflix. They have always wanted to work with him.
“I don't want to offend Netflix,” says Almodóvar, noting that streaming platforms have created a lot of work in Spain and opportunities for directors. “Again, a measure of my success is the fact that I can say no.”
Almodóvar has been asked many times about the Netflix reference since “Navidad Amarga” was released in Spain.
“I think the reason people keep commenting on that is because there's a fear of Netflix and a general fear of criticizing online platforms,” he says.
And you don't have that fear, I ask you.
“Not at all,” Almodóvar quickly responds. “I don't have many fears. In a general Spanish sense, here we are not afraid to call things what they are. We have a government that has called Gaza a genocide and the Spanish people in general are not afraid to call these wars what they are.”
Among other Cannes awards his films have won, Almodóvar won the directing prize for “All About My Mother,” pictured, in 1999. But he has yet to win the Palme d'Or.
(Teresa Isasi / Sony Pictures Classics)
Accepting the Chaplin Prize at New York's Lincoln Center last year, Almodóvar demonstrated that spirit, saying he didn't know if it was appropriate to come to a country “governed by a narcissistic authority, which does not respect human rights” and then declaring that Donald Trump would go down in history as a “catastrophe.”
Almodóvar says he felt compelled to say something, but also notes that he can return to Spain where he lives and works.
“That makes it easier for me to have clarity in the moment,” he says. “I'm a foreigner.”
“You know, I'm not really blaming anyone in particular, but it was quite notable to see the Oscar telecast where there weren't a lot of anti-war or anti-Trump protests,” Almodóvar continues. “Maybe it wasn't the only one, but the only real example I can remember came from a European, a friend of mine, Javier Bardem, who said directly: 'Free Palestine.'”
“People are obviously very scared. The United States is not a democracy right now. Some people say maybe it's an imperfect democracy, but I really don't think the United States is a democracy right now. The heartbreaking and ironic thing is that democracy has given rise, through the proper and correct voting mechanism, to this kind of totalitarian regime. And it's both a paradox and it's also incredibly sad.”
