Pedro Almod\u00f3var is officially gearing up to shoot his next film, \u201cBitter Christmas,\u201d a holiday-set tragicomedy that marks the Spanish auteur\u2019s return to his native language after back-to-back English-language efforts.<\/p>\n
Announced last October during an interview<\/a>, \u201cBitter Christmas\u201d will center on a woman abandoned during the holiday season\u2014classic Almod\u00f3var terrain, blending melodrama with emotional rawness. According to a new report from HOLA!<\/a>, the director\u2019s 24th feature is now in pre-production and will begin filming this month in the Canary Islands.<\/p>\n Victoria Luengo (\u201cThe Room Next Door\u201d) and Patrick Criado (\u201cRiot Police\u201d) will lead the cast. The two previously worked together on \u201cRiot Police\u201d and bring serious local cred: Criado is a Feroz and Ondas winner, while Luengo has quickly become one of Spain\u2019s rising stars.<\/p>\n Notably, \u201cBitter Christmas\u201d will be shot in Spanish, marking a return to form for Almod\u00f3var after his recent English-language projects, \u201cStrange Way of Life\u201d (2023) and \u201cThe Room Next Door\u201d (2024), which starred Tilda Swinton, and Julianne Moore. With this latest film, it looks like Almod\u00f3var is going back to his roots.<\/p>\n Despite receiving generally positive\u2014but not overwhelmingly enthusiastic\u2014reviews, \u201cThe Room Next Door \u201ctook home the Golden Lion at the 81st Venice Film Festival last year. Personally, I really liked the film. In my festival coverage, I wrote the following about it:<\/p>\n Don\u2019t listen to the naysayers who claim Almodovar\u2019s latest melodrama, his first English feature, was a disappointment. There\u2019s a reason why \u201cThe Room Next Door,\u201d a meditation on death, won the Golden Lion, and it\u2019s because Almodovar has made a real beauty of a film. Unlike Almodovar\u2019s other works, \u201cThe Room Next Door\u201d isn\u2019t filled with twists and turns; rather, it\u2019s a simple story, and beautifully told at that. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Almod\u00f3var has had a storied filmmaking career since his 1980 debut \u201cPepi, Luci, Bom.\u201d His most notable works include \u201cTalk to Her,\u201d \u201cThe Skin I Live In,\u201d \u201cPain and Glory,\u201d \u201cBroken Embraces,\u201d and \u201cWomen on the Verge of A Nervous Breakdown.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pedro Almod\u00f3var is officially gearing up to shoot his next film, \u201cBitter Christmas,\u201d a holiday-set tragicomedy that marks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155010,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,104],"class_list":{"0":"post-155009","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-spain"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n