Bitter Christmas - Movie - Festival QUEER

Bitter Christmas

Pedro Almodóvar
Fiction : 112' / Gay, Lesbian, Auto-fiction

The film alternates between two stories: one starring Elsa, an advertising director, in 2004, during the long December Constitution Day holiday. The second takes place in 2025, and centers on Raúl, a screenwriter and director who is writing a screenplay that we soon discover is the story of Elsa, her boyfriend Bonifacio, and her friends Patricia and Natalia. Blending fiction with reality, Elsa is, in a way, Raúl’s alter ego, as he turns to autofiction as a way to overcome a long period of writer’s block. She looks within herself and cannot help but also look at the people who make up her most intimate world: her partner and her assistant. The film portrays the close relationship between reality and fiction, between inspiration and life, raising the debate about the limits of autofiction.

Sections: QL - Special Screenings
+ Info: https://www.pris.pt

/ Details

Year: 2026

Country: Spain

Language: spanish

Subtitles: portuguese

With: Bárbara Lennie, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, Victoria Luengo, Patrick Criado, Milena Smit, Quim Gutiérrez, Rossy de Palma, Carmen Machi, Gloria Muñoz, Amaia Romero 

/ Direction

Pedro Almodóvar

Spain

Pedro Almodóvar was born in the heart of La Mancha in the 50s. At seventeen, he moved to Madrid with a very specific project in mind: to study cinema and direct films. He wrote, loved, acted with the mythical independent theatre group Los Goliardos, made short films, collaborated with various underground magazines, wrote stories, and was a member of a parodic punk-rock group, Almodóvar and McNamara. His personal explosion coincided with the explosion of democratic Madrid in the mythic period known as La Movida. Since 1980, he has been responsible for one of the most iconic and widely recognized cinematographic oeuvres of our times. Since 1986, his films have been produced by El Deseo, the production company he founded with his brother, Agustín Almodóvar.