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After The Room Next Door, what does Pedro Almodóvar have in store for us?
Newly awarded the Golden Lion at the 2024 Venice Film Festival, director Pedro Almodóvar is already working on his next project. A modern tragicomedy titled Amarga Navidad (Spanish for “Bitter Christmas”) set to the chime of holiday bells. Here’s what you need to know about the feature film, shot between Madrid and the shores of Lanzarote…
By Jordan Bako.
Amarga Navidad, Pedro Almodóvar’s new feature film
We last saw director Pedro Almodóvar after the release of The Room Next Door, a poignant drama about euthanasia. For the first time, the Spanish filmmaker tried his hand at a making a feature film entirely in English. The latter masterfully orchestrated a tender narrative, swirled with snowflakes falling with a cruel delicacy on the streets of New York.
Led by a pair of commanding performances from Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore, Pedro Almodóvar’s twenty-third film earned him the Golden Lion at the 2024 Venice Film Festival among other distinctions. It was the third prize he received in Venice, following the award for Best Screenplay for Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown in 1988 and a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement in 2019.
He is also the most-nominated director in the history of the Goya Awards – the Spanish equivalent of the Césars – with a no less than 137 nominations. The workhorse of cinema is now immersing himself into his next project. Titled Amarga Navidad, his upcoming feature is very much promising.
A tragicomedy off the Spanish coast
In Amarga Navidad, we follow the character of Elsa, an advertising director who has recently lost her mother in December. Dreading the idea of wallowing in grief, she throws herself into work. No distractions, no breaks, only the numbing comfort of her job. But when a panic attack forces her to take time off, Elsa sets her sights on the island of Lanzarote, in the Canary archipelago. There, she hopes to find solace with her friend Patricia and her writer partner, Bonifacio.
The filming of Amarga Navidad has already started between Madrid and Lanzarote, two places dear to Pedro Almodóvar. The Spanish capital remains his go-to shooting location, which Lanzarote had been previously featured in Broken Embraces (2009), starring Penélope Cruz.
Pedro Almodóvar should be delivering a kind of modern-day Christmas tale. True to the themes that have long defined his work, the film is expected to revolve around strong female characters and infused with his signature flair for tragicomedy.
To bring his story to life, the filmmaker can count on a cast of familiar faces. Many have already starred in his previous works. Among them are Bárbara Lennie (The Skin I Live In), Aitana Sánchez-Gijón (Parallel Mothers), and Argentine actor Leonardo Sbaraglia (Pain and Glory). The release of the film is scheduled for 2026. Will it live up to the director’s vast filmography?
The film Amarga Navidad by Pedro Almodóvar does not have a release date yet.
