Pedro Almodóvar is relaxed. The Spanish director already knows that he won’t get the Palme d’Or this year at Cannes! Strange Way of Life, a thirty-minute short film telling the love story between two cowboys is simply not in competition. “I feel totally relaxed because I have no pressure,” he admits to 20 minutes.
Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal form a sensual and touching couple in the film. Only the first accompanied the director on the Croisette. The second withdrew due to filming. “I immediately thought of them both once I had written my screenplay, explains Pedro Almodóvar. They are as different as they are complementary. It was important to create a dynamic couple. »
His first film in English before a film in the United States
This film produced by Yves Saint Laurent (as Lux Aeterna by Gaspar Noé) is the Spanish director’s first in English. “I had wanted to for a long time but I was afraid, recognizes the filmmaker. Trying it on a short format was a perfect opportunity. »
Moreover, his production company announced on Thursday that Pedro Almodóvar was currently preparing his first feature film shot in the United States. “Yes, we want to do something in the United States. We are impatient but it is not yet defined, ”said Esther Garcia, producer of the filmmaker’s company, El Deseo, on the sidelines of a panel on Spanish cinema at the Film Market.
To return to the film, a tribute to the classics of the western, Strange way of life had its place on the Croisette. “I was inspired by the works of great filmmakers like Howard Hawks or Anthony Mann more than the reality of the cowboys of the 1910s, insists Pedro Almodóvar. That’s why there are no explicit sex scenes in the film. It would have clashed with the style I chose. I preferred to give more room to the viewer’s imagination. This bias did not bother the festival-goers who gave the master a triumph. “I should have been given the Palme d’or d’honneur this year, rather than Michael Douglas. I would have loved that! jokes the teasing director. We are sending this great idea to the organizers for next year.