10/06/2025 - Bárbara Lennie, Victoria Luengo and Patrick Criado lead the cast of the drama, which also includes Leonardo Sbaraglia, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, Milena Smit and Quim Gutiérrez

l-r: Actress Victoria Luengo, director Pedro Almodóvar, actor Patrick Criado and actress Bárbara Lennie on the set of Bitter Christmas (© Iglesias Mas)

Bitter Christmas, Pedro Almodóvar’s new film following The Room Next Door [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], winner of the Golden Lion at the most recent Venice Film Festival, has begun shooting in Madrid and the Canary Island of Lanzarote, where the director returns to the volcanic landscape after filming part of Broken Embraces [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Pedro Almodóvar
film profile] (2009) there. Although his previous feature film was shot in English, the Oscar winner for All About My Mother and Talk to Her [+see also:
trailer
film profile] returns to Spanish with a script he wrote himself.

The 24th film by Spain's most international filmmaker stars actors who have previously worked with him: Bárbara Lennie (winner of the Goya for Best Actress for Magical Girl [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Carlos Vermut
film profile], who appeared in a supporting role in The Skin I Live In [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Pedro Almodóvar
film profile]), Victoria Luengo (who had a cameo role in The Room Next Door), Leonardo Sbaraglia (the Argentine actor who appeared in Pain & Glory [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Antonio Banderas
Q&A: Pedro Almodóvar
film profile]), Aitana Sánchez-Gijón and Milena Smit (both seen in Parallel Mothers [+see also:
film review
trailer
making of
film profile]). They are joined by the new “Almodóvar boys” Patrick Criado (Goya nominee for Family United [+see also:
trailer
making of
film profile] and recently seen in The Red Virgin [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] and the series La canción [+see also:
series review
series profile]) and Quim Gutiérrez (seen in DarkBlueAlmostBlack [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], for which he won a Goya, and more recently, in The Red Island [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] and Netflix series Burning Body).

Bitter Christmas (also the title of a song performed by Chavela Vargas, a friend of Almodóvar) tells the story of Elsa (played by Bárbara Lennie), an advertising director whose mother dies during a long December holiday weekend. She throws herself into her work, although it is more of a headlong rush forward. She works non-stop and, without realising it, denies herself the time she needs to grieve for her mother's absence. Until a panic attack forces her to stop and take a break. Her partner, Bonifacio, is her lifeline in this moment of crisis. Elsa decides to travel to the island of Lanzarote with her friend Patricia (Victoria Luengo), who is also looking to get away from Madrid, while Bonifacio stays behind in the city.

"The story of these three characters, and several others, runs in parallel to that of screenwriter and film director Raúl Durán (Leonardo Sbaraglia), intertwining fiction and reality. Bitter Christmas shows how life and fiction are inseparably linked, sometimes painfully so,” says the director about the film, with cinematography by Pau Esteve Birba (Goya winner for Caníbal [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Manuel Martín Cuenca
film profile]).

Bitter Christmas is produced by El Deseo (the company owned by brothers Pedro and Agustín Almodóvar, who recently co-produced Óliver Laxe's Sirât [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Óliver Laxe
film profile], winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes) in collaboration with Movistar Plus+. Warner Bros. Pictures Spain will distribute the film in Spain, scheduled for next year.

(Translated from Spanish)