He Almeria landscape will be represented at the next cannes film festivalwhich celebrates its 76th edition from May 16 to 27, twice and by the hand of two great directors of Spanish cinema: Pedro Almodovar and Victor Erice. Both will premiere, out of competition, their last two works, filmed on locations in our province during the past year: the short film ‘Strange way of life’the manchego’s first foray into the western in which he used scenes from Tabernas, and the movie ‘Close your eyes’with which the director of ‘The Spirit of the Beehive’ returns to the feature film thirty years after ‘El sol del quince’a documentary about the painter Antonio López who, precisely, triumphed in Cannes where he won the jury and critics prize in 1992.
The French festival, which this Thursday presented its programming, announced on Tuesday that ‘Strange way of life’ will have its world premiere there in the official section, out of competition. Together with Almodóvar, his two leading actors will be on La Croisette, Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascalwho will participate after the screening in a meeting with the media.
The cast of ‘Strange way of life’ is completed by Jason Fernández, José Condessa, George Steane, Manu Ríos, Pedro Casablanc and Sara Sálamo. After passing through Cannes, the film will hit Spanish theaters by BTeam Pictures.
Two men, one desert
Little is known about the plot of ‘Strange way of life’, which takes its title from a fado by Amalia Rodrigues. “Is a queer western, since there are two men and they love each other, and each one faces that situation in the opposite way (…) It addresses masculinity in a profound sense. The western is a masculine genre, and this one has all the elements: there are gunmen, a sheriff, a ranch, a town, a duel. But there is something that I don’t think we’ve seen before in a western: the dialogues between two men that this one has”, he confessed last year during a chat with the singer Dua Lipa on his podcast ‘At Your Service’.
‘Strange way of life’ was filmed on location in Almeria during four days last August: two in the Tabernas Desert and two in the Western Leone. One of the buildings in the town was decorated to become the sheriff’s office. The wardrobe bears the signature of Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello, also an associate producer.
With ‘Strange way of life’ There are already three occasions in which Almodóvar has filmed on Almeria stages: ‘Labyrinth of passions’, his second film, brought him to Agua Amarga in 1982. And twenty years later, in 2002, he turned Mónsul on the Jordanian coast into a fragment of ‘Talk to her’, with which he won the Oscar to the original script.
residence facing the sea
For his part, the filming of ‘Close your eyes’third fiction feature film after ‘The Spirit of the Beehive’ (1973) and ‘El sur’ (1983), passed through the province of Almería in November 2022 after starting in Granada (Castell de Ferro and Gualchos). Later she traveled to Asturias and ended up in Madrid, with sequences shot at the Prado Museum with Ana Torrent.
‘Close your eyes’ is a drama about the friendship between a filmmaker and a missing actor in strange circumstances, an event that returns to the present as a result of a television program.
In Almería, Erice transformed the old house of spirituality of El Pocico, in Aguadulce (today a rural house and residence for artists), in a residence for the elderly run by some nuns. They participated in the filming of these sequences Jose Coronado and Manolo Solothe two protagonists of the film, in addition to Petra Martínez and María León, as well as local figures.
‘Cerrar los ojos’, produced by Pecado Films, Tandem Films and Nautilus Films and with the participation of RTVE and Canal Sur, will premiere in the section ‘Cannes Premieres’ and It will hit theaters in our country throughout this 2023 from the hand of Avalon.
The landscape of Almería will do a historic double in Cannes with Almodóvar and Erice