Main Slate
Bitter Christmas
Pedro Almodóvar
U.S. Premiere
The incomparable Pedro Almodóvar explores the artist’s tenuous relationship with fiction and reality in this film about an actress writing a script inspired by the lives of those around her—which is itself the invention of an Almodóvar-like filmmaker.
- Runtime
- 111 min
- Country
- Spain
- Language
- Spanish
- Year
- 2026
- More information
- Official film page
Screenings
The incomparable Pedro Almodóvar has been rendering the life of the creative mind on screen for five decades, with exquisite attention to every nuance of both aesthetic design and human emotion. With his complexly conceived latest, he uses a metacinematic framework to explore the artist’s tenuous relationship between fiction and reality. The sublimely expressive Bárbara Lennie stars as Elsa, a well-known actress suffering from debilitating migraines whose directorial efforts had failed upon release but have become cult classics. While trying to maintain a relationship with her loyal boyfriend Bonifacio (Patrick Criado), a fireman moonlighting as a stripper, she becomes inspired by the travails of her friends to write a new script. Yet Elsa’s story is itself a story—being written by Raúl (Leonardo Sbaraglia), an Almodóvar-esque filmmaker who is, in turn, taking his cues from the lives of those around him. Mixing the irreverence of early Almodóvar with the somber melodrama of his later work, Bitter Christmas insightfully details the vampiric nature of artistic creation and how we use fiction to try and right the wrongs of our lives. A Sony Pictures Classics release.
Explore more on Film Comment:
The incomparable Pedro Almodóvar has been rendering the life of the creative mind on screen for five decades, with exquisite attention to every nuance of both aesthetic design and human emotion. With his complexly conceived latest, he uses a metacinematic framework to explore the artist’s tenuous relationship between fiction and reality. The sublimely expressive Bárbara Lennie stars as Elsa, a well-known actress suffering from debilitating migraines whose directorial efforts had failed upon release but have become cult classics. While trying to maintain a relationship with her loyal boyfriend Bonifacio (Patrick Criado), a fireman moonlighting as a stripper, she becomes inspired by the travails of her friends to write a new script. Yet Elsa’s story is itself a story—being written by Raúl (Leonardo Sbaraglia), an Almodóvar-esque filmmaker who is, in turn, taking his cues from the lives of those around him. Mixing the irreverence of early Almodóvar with the somber melodrama of his later work, Bitter Christmas insightfully details the vampiric nature of artistic creation and how we use fiction to try and right the wrongs of our lives. A Sony Pictures Classics release.
Explore more on Film Comment: