It’s quite welcome that we’re getting successive Pedro Almodóvar the past few years. After Pain & Glory and The Human Voice, his next feature, Madres Paralelas (aka Parallel Mothers), is set to open the Venice Film Festival ahead of a release in Spain in September and a U.S. release on December 24 from Sony Pictures Classics. Ahead of the premiere, the first teaser trailer has now arrived.
Reuniting the director with his longtime collaborators Penélope Cruz, Julieta Serrano, and Rossy de Palma, the film also stars Israel Elejalde, Milena Smit, and Aitana Sánchez-Gijón. The story, which the director reveals will be an “intense drama,” follows women who give birth on the same day and have parallel trajectories in life. Written specifically with Cruz in mind, the story is set in Madrid and will explore “the feminine world of new mothers, of mothers who are raising children in the first and second year,” Cruz said.
“With Madres paralelas, I return to the female universe, to motherhood, to the family,” Almodóvar said. “I speak of the importance of ancestors and descendants. The inevitable presence of memory. There are many mothers in my filmography, the ones that are part of this story are very different.”
Watch the trailer below and we’ll update if English subtitles arrive.
Also, in other news related to Almodóvar collaborators, Cruz and Antonio Banderas have teamed for Gastón Duprat and Mariano Cohn’s Official Competition, a meta movie about filmmaking. Watch the first trailer below ahead of a Venice premiere.