Pedro Almodóvar’s latest film, the Spanish western short film Strange Way of Life will world premiere as an Official Selection of 76th Cannes Film Festival. This short is the filmmaker’s second English-language experience, after The Human Voice in 2020. The film stars Ethan Hawke, Pedro Pascal, Pedro Casablanc, Manu Ríos, George Steane, José Condessa, Jason Fernández, Sara Sálamo, Ohiana Cueto, and Daniela Medina.
A man rides a horse across the desert that separates him from Bitter Creek. He comes to visit Sheriff Jake. Twenty-five years earlier, both the sheriff and Silva, the rancher who rides out to meet him, worked together as hired gunmen. Silva visits him with the excuse of reuniting with his friend from his youth, and they do indeed celebrate their meeting, but the next morning Sheriff Jake tells him that the reason for his trip is not to go down the memory lane of their old friendship….
I must say no more so as not to give away all the surprises of the script.
The strange way of life referred in the title alludes to the famous fado by Amalia Rodrigues, whose lyrics suggest that there is no stranger existence than the one that is lived by turning your back on your own desires.
Pedro Almodóvar returns to Cannes where he won the Best Director award for All About My Mother in 1999. In 2004, Bad Education was screened as the opening film, a first for a Spanish film. Pedro Almodóvar then received the Best Screenplay award in 2006 for Volver, which had been selected in Competition. President of the Jury in 2017, he awarded the Palme d’Or to The Square by Ruben Östlund. Two years later, he presented the very personal Pain and Glory in which Antonio Banderas’ deeply moving performance earned him the Best Actor award from the Jury chaired by Alejandro González Iñárritu.
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