It didn’t take much time for director Pedro Almodóvar's latest movie to get a release date. The Spanish-Language “Madres Paralelas” (Parallel Mothers), which will be the legendary director’s 23rd feature-length film, wrapped production this past April and is now set for a September 2021 release in Spain [via El Espanol].
The director wrote the script during COVID-19 quarantine in Spain, and Penelope Cruz's role was written specifically for her. According to Almodóvar, it is a drama about “two women who give birth on the same day and who have parallel trajectories”. He went on to add that “It will be a story about the feminist world of recent mothers, of mothers who are raising children during their first and second year, and the many things that happen during that time.”
A very tongue-in-cheek poster of the film was released today. It features a milked nipple in the shape of an eye [below]. Since this is the Spanish poster, I am not convinced the same image will be used for the U.S. poster, but I’d be pleasantly surprised if it does in fact happen.
The 70-year-old Spanish filmmaker is coming off the uber-meta and autobiographical “Pain and Glory,” which premiered at last year’s Cannes Film Festival and was one of the best films of his entire career. Almodóvar is known for his stylized melodrama classics, those include “Women on the Verge of A Nervous Breakdown,” “Talk to Her,” “All About My Mother,” and “Law of Desire.”
“Madres Paralelas” will premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September and then a few weeks later at the New York Film Festival.
Araki wrote the screenplay, and will direct “The Decline of F*cking Western Civilization,” a dark comedy starring Ashton Kutcher, Alison Brie, and Jesse Williams. The film started shooting today in Los Angeles.