Pedro Almodovar hit the Venice Film
Festival on Thursday.
The cult Spanish director presented his new half-hour short The
Human Voice, which is out of competition.
It is based on the Jean Cocteau play of the same name.
It has been adapted for the screen several times including an
iconic version with Anna Magnani in the lead role in Roberto
Rossellini's 'L'Amore'.
Almodovar's lead is Tilda Swinton, who is getting a career
Golden Lion at this year's 77th festival.
The Venice festival is the world's oldest cinema fest.
The acclaimed director told a Lido audience that going to a
cinema was the antidote to COVID lockdown fever.
"Before coming here I thought that COVID had forced us to stay
at home, which we viewed at a certain point as a prison," said
the director of All About My Mother.
"How many serials, how many films have we seen (on streaming
services) to fill the time, and how much are serials and films
necessary and helpful?"
But he said it was better to "leave the home and go to the
cinema to share the adventure of a film in a projection room,
being thrilled together with strangers".
Almodóvar achieved international recognition for his black
comedy-drama film Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
(1988), which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best
Foreign Language Film, and went on to more success with the dark
romantic comedy film Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1990), the
melodrama High Heels (1991) and the romantic drama thriller Live
Flesh (1997).
His subsequent two films won an Academy Award each: All About
My Mother (1999) received the award for Best Foreign Language
Film while Talk to Her (2002) earned him the award for Best
Original Screenplay.
Almodóvar followed this with the drama Volver (2006), the
romantic thriller Broken Embraces (2009), the psychological
thriller The Skin I Live In (2011) and the dramas Julieta (2016)
and Pain and Glory (2019), all of which were in competition for
the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
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