Bitter Christmas, Pedro Almodóvar’s new film following The Room Next Door [+lire aussi :
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interview : Pedro Almodóvar
fiche film] (2009) there. Although his previous feature film was shot in English, the Oscar winner for All About My Mother and Talk to Her [+lire aussi :
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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 [+lire aussi :
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interview : Carlos Vermut
fiche film], who appeared in a supporting role in The Skin I Live In [+lire aussi :
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interview : Pedro Almodóvar
fiche film]), Victoria Luengo (who had a cameo role in The Room Next Door), Leonardo Sbaraglia (the Argentine actor who appeared in Pain & Glory [+lire aussi :
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interview : Antonio Banderas
Q&A : Pedro Almodóvar
fiche film]), Aitana Sánchez-Gijón and Milena Smit (both seen in Parallel Mothers [+lire aussi :
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making of
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fiche série]) and Quim Gutiérrez (seen in DarkBlueAlmostBlack [+lire aussi :
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fiche film], for which he won a Goya, and more recently, in The Red Island [+lire aussi :
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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 [+lire aussi :
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interview : Manuel Martín Cuenca
fiche film]).

Bitter Christmas is produced by El Deseo (the company owned by brothers Pedro and Agustín Almodóvar, who recently co-produced Óliver Laxe's Sirât [+lire aussi :
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interview : Óliver Laxe
fiche film], 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.