In addition to promoting his film ‘Parallel Mothers’, he visited the tribute that the Hollywood Academy dedicated to him.
Just two days after the US has reopened the borders, Pedro Almodovar go back to a Hollywood who is full of praise for his latest movie, Parallel mothers, and that has made him the protagonist of one of the rooms of the brand new Museum of the Oscars.
“It’s a weird feeling, for the first time I felt like it was part of popular culture. Being inside a museum of this size … “, count to Efe the Spanish filmmaker in Los Angeles, where in addition to promoting his film, he has visited the tribute that the Hollywood Academy.
The imposing museum of the institution in charge of delivering the Oscars opened in September and chose Almodóvar to design a space dedicated to his filmography.
After receiving the commission, the manchego decided to reflect on his films, “Make the images of one and the other dialogue with each other”, he points out.
The room, set in a recognizable ‘Almodovarian’ style, shows twelve audiovisual montages on the themes that have guided the work of the Manchego: the “noir”, the waning lover, bodies, religious education, guilt and pain, musicals, comedy, Bergman and melodrama, sex and desire, mothers, Müller coffee and family.
“They are put on those huge screens, which I love”, comments on a room that functions as a staging of the filmmaker’s mind.
No other director has such a large (and personal) space in the more than 28,000 square meters occupied by the building designed by Renzo Piano to house a museum that aspires to be a world reference.
“They were very generous thinking of me, I was very impressed”, resume Almodóvar.
Later, in April 2022, The Academy will publish a book on the filmography of Spanish, which will include writings by his brother and producer, Agustín Almodóvar, and Tilda Swinton, protagonist of The Human Voice, among others.
According to Raúl Guzmán, one of the center’s curators, the fascination that Hollywood feels for Almodóvar is still as valid now as it was in the late 1980s, when Women at the edge of a nervous attack gave him his first Oscar nomination. There is no expiration date for the “Almodovarian”.
“Few filmmakers can have adjectives with their name”Guzmán concludes.
‘Parallel Mothers’ begins his career for the Oscars
Proof of the good publicity that Spaniards receive on the other side of the Atlantic is that Parallel Mothers -its film number 22- remains a firm candidate for the Oscar, despite the fact that this year it is not the candidate of the Spanish Film Academy in the category of best international film.
The name of Almodóvar appears in the pools of the possible nominees for best director and its protagonist, Penelope Cruz, It seems a safe bet in the performance categories after winning the Vopli Cup in Venice.
Even after the opening of the foreign film awards with the triumph of Parasite At the 2020 Oscars, some outlets include Parallel Mothers in the list of non-Anglo-Saxon films that could be among the candidates for best picture.
“Sony Pictures will premiere it on August 25, in the middle of the season of premieres that are thought to be nominated for an Oscar,” Almodóvar points out. But I don’t think about that, I just want the movie to go well. “
Before that, the feature film will go through some of the festivals that warm the engines of award season.
The AFI Fest, organized by the American Film Institute to bring the highlights of the international circuit to Los Angeles, will be the first. There begins the “lobby” of the Oscars.
“The reviews so far are 100% good and very encouraging”, Almodóvar concludes. (I)
Paul is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment and general news. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established herself as a respected voice in the industry.
