The famous Spanish director Pedro Almodovar will be present in Cannes this year with Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal for an awaited western, shot in English.
The kick-off of the 76th Cannes Film Festival fast approaching on the French Riviera and Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar is set to headline it. He will indeed present a long-awaited short film, shot in English with Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal and entitled Strange way of life. The organizers have announced that it will be screened “in official selection and world premiere” and will be “followed by a meeting” with the team.
The film is a sort of expected response to the Secret of Brokeback mountain (2005) and will tell the story of a rancher, Silva, played by The Last of Us actor Pedro Pascal and a sheriff, played by Ethan Hawke. The plot relates the reunion of the two men, 25 years after having worked together as contract killers.
Pedro Almodovar: a Cannes regular
In a statement, Pedro Almodovar explains: “The strange way of life to which the title refers alludes to the famous fado of Amalia Rodrigues, whose lyrics suggest that there is no existence stranger than the one one lives by turning one’s back on one’s own desires“. This is the second time that the director of Speak with her, High heels Or all about my mother is filming in English, after a short film presented in 2020 in Venice: The human voicewith Tilda Swinton.
Pedro Almodovar is a regular at the Cannes Film Festival. A filmmaker emblematic of the liberation of morals and of the Movida in Spain, he has notably presented on the shores of the Mediterranean The bad education opening in 2004 and even chaired the jury in 2017. He also awarded the Palme d’Or to the film The Square, by Swedish director Ruben östlund, who is presiding over the jury this year. The 76th Cannes Film Festival takes place from May 16 to 27, 2023and the official selection is to be unveiled on Thursday, April 13.