Ingrid (Julianne Moore) and Martha (Tilda Swinton) were close friends in their youth, when they worked together at the same magazine. Ingrid went on to become an autofiction novelist while Martha became a war reporter, and they were separated by the circumstances of life.

After years of being out of touch, they meet again in an extreme but strangely sweet situation.

The Room Next Door is exclusively in cinemas from Boxing Day.
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Continuing her long association with Almodóvar, Penélope Cruz plays Janis a world-class photographer who becomes pregnant after a night of passion with Arturo (Israel Elejalde) a forensic archaeologist. She enlists his help to appeal to the government to excavate a mass grave site this possibly contains the remains of her family members. They were victims of fascist aggressors during the Spanish Civil War.

In the maternity ward, Janis meets Ana (Milena Smit) a young woman who is also there to deliver a baby. After sharing a room their lives become intertwined in a lifelong bond. After successful births that both leave the hospital to resume their lives. There is a mystery that is attached to this that plays out in a somewhat obvious fashion but the emotional focus of the film lies elsewhere.

The film is oddly paced with slow exposition until the final reel and then accelerating rather abruptly to its conclusion. You do feel attached to the participants by film’s end. In some ways it makes the final reveal feel that much more human. Our lives are rarely linearly modulated, more a series of ups and downs. The final send-off of Parallel Mothers is its most lasting element.

Rob Hudson
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Two women, Janis and Ana, coincide in a hospital room where they are going to give birth.

Both are single and became pregnant by accident. Janis, middle-aged, doesn’t regret it and she is exultant.

The other, Ana, an adolescent, is scared, repentant and traumatised. Janis tries to encourage her while they move like sleepwalkers along the hospital corridors.

The few words they exchange in these hours will create a very close link between the two, which by chance develops and complicates, and changes their lives in a decisive way.

Starring Penélope Cruz, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, Milena Smit, Israel Elejalde, Julieta Serrano, and Rossy de Palma, Pedro Almodóvar’s Parallel Mothers will be released in Australian cinemas January 27!
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Competition will be drawn January 25, winners will be notified by mail.

Both are single and became pregnant by accident. Janis, middle-aged, doesn’t regret it and she is exultant.

The other, Ana, an adolescent, is scared, repentant and traumatised. Janis tries to encourage her while they move like sleepwalkers along the hospital corridors.

The few words they exchange in these hours will create a very close link between the two, which by chance develops and complicates, and changes their lives in a decisive way.

Starring Penélope Cruz, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, Milena Smit, Israel Elejalde, Julieta Serrano, and Rossy de Palma, Parallel Mothers will be released in cinemas from January 27, 2022!
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The film festival, titled PEDRO ALMODÓVAR RETROSPECTIVE, celebrates the expansive, bold and daring career of Spanish Auteur, Pedro Almodóvar. Catch his muse, Penélope Cruz in the visually stunning, Volver, Broken Embraces and Academy Award Winner, All About My Mother. See Antonio Banderas in the dark romantic comedy, Tie me up! Tie Me Down!, Pain and Glory and Thriller, The Skin I live in, plus more classic Almodóvar titles to satisfy your soul.

Head to www.dendy.com.au for more information and to book tickets.

Pedro Almodovar Retrospective
18 March – 7 April 2021
Dendy Coorparoo
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That character, Mateo Blanco (and his alter ego Harry Caine) played by Lluís Homar puts expectations to the side while indulging in some classic artist inspired narcissism. His back-story is told in flashbacks but there are still a number of gaps that need to be filled in by the attentive. Also mirroring real life, it is not always apparent what the motivations behind some of those actions are.

Almodóvar’s muse, Penélope Cruz delvers a performance that could only happen with the kind of bond she shares with someone she knows and trusts. All the other cast members also share this trust and as such the acting is outstanding throughout.

It’s pretty much left up to the involved weather this is a comment of how modern day society not only wants eccentric behavior from its celebrities and talented but actually demand it. It also throws the question out there, does true love really exists of is it all just different degrees of obsession.

Rob Hudson
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Antonio Banderas is Salvador Mallo, a famous filmmaker who is more enduring life than actually living it. His body is riddled with aliments and his creative muse has escaped him. When he reunites with an actor he worked with many years ago, Alberto Crespo (Asier Etxeandia), they end their estrangement and reconnect.

Felling guilty from the years apart. Salvador gives his actor friend a script based on his life story and Alberto turns it into a one man play. This play sets even more people and memories into play. The architecture of the film cleverly blends current time, flashbacks and movie scenes to move things forward in what is a leisurely story arc.

Missing a lot of the zing that Almodóvar is usually known for, Pain & Glory slows things down to an elderly pace and exemplifies the struggle that marks a creative mind in decline. This seriousness is resolved with a nod towards redemption and reinforces the Bard’s adage that, All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players.

Rob Hudson
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Salvador Mallo is a veteran film director, afflicted by multiple ailments, the worst of which is his inability to continue filming. His physical condition doesn’t allow it and, if he can’t film again, his life has no meaning.

In recovering his past, Salvador finds the urgent need to recount it, and in that need he also finds his salvation.

Starring Antonio Banderas, PAIN AND GLORY is in Cinemas November 7.
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To enter this great competition just fill out the entry form below.

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Competition will be drawn 3 November 2019, winners will be notified by mail.

Julieta lives in Madrid with her daughter Antía. They both suffer in silence over the loss of Xoan, Antía’s father and Julieta’s husband. But at times grief doesn’t bring people closer, it drives them apart.

When Antía turns eighteen she abandons her mother, without a word of explanation. Julieta looks for her in every possible way, but all she discovers is how little she knows of her daughter.

Julieta talks about the mother’s struggle to survive uncertainty. It also talks about fate, about guilt complexes and about that unfathomable mystery that leads us abandon the people we love, erasing them from our lives as if they had never meant anything, as if they had never existed.

To enter this great competition just fill in the entry form below. Please note – these tickets are for a specific screening only and can not be exchanged or refunded. The winners will need to be available on Monday October 10 at 6:30pm in Brisbane to be able to attend this screening at the Palace Barracks Cinema.

Competition will be drawn 4 October 2016, winners will be notified by email.