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Parallele Mütter ( Madres Paralelas / Parallel Mothers ) **** Spain 2021 Opening January 6 , 2022
Director : Pedro Almodóvar Writing credits : Pedro Almodóvar Principal actors : Penélope Cruz , Milena Smit , Rossy de Palma , Israel Elejalde , Aitana Sánchez Gijón and Julietta Serrano
This latest work by Pedro Almodóvar opened the Venice Film Festival in September and was very well received . It is not an “ over-the-top ” movie , like so many of his previous films , but a serious piece , celebrating motherhood , the solidarity of women , and the importance of family history . The film has many unexpected twists and turns with very dramatic moments , and completely draws you in .
Penélope Cruz , in her seventh collaboration with Almodóvar , is perfectly cast as Janis ( yes , named after Janis Joplin by her hippie mother ), a successful photographer , who , at 40 , finds herself pregnant . Arturo ( Israel Elejalde ), the baby ’ s father , is married to a wife who is battling cancer , and Janis knows that she will be a single mother . Still , she is overjoyed
by her pregnancy , unlike Ana ( Milena Smit ), whose pregnancy was everything but deliberate , and who is terrified by it . The two women , seemingly as different as could be , meet in the hospital ’ s maternity ward , pass time together while waiting for their babies to arrive , and literally give birth at about the same moment . Encouraged by Janis , Ana becomes less frightened of her future , even if she is very much left alone by her own mother , Teresa ( Aitana Sánchez Gijón ), a rather self-centered actress who leaves town to follow her acting ambitions rather than support her teenage daughter . Before they leave the hospital , the two women exchange their contact details and promise to stay in touch . Arturo , who comes to visit Janis and to see the baby , makes an insulting comment to Janis , doubting his fatherhood of the child . However , the more Janis thinks about it , the more doubt grows in her as well , and what follows , will change the life of everybody ...
This is only one level of the movie . There is another , political , aspect , which plays an equally important part in the movie . Arturo is a forensic anthropologist and a member of a foundation which tries to uncover the whereabouts of more than 100,000 “ missing ” victims of the Spanish Civil War and the merciless Franco regime . Janis ’ s grandfather was one of those victims , and Janis has asked Arturo to oversee the excavation of a gravesite in the small village where her grandparents lived . Follow Almodóvar as he masterfully links these two parts of the story . ( Ulrike Lemke )
Belfast **** UK 2021 Opening February 24 , 2022
Director : Kenneth Branagh Writing credits : Kenneth Branagh Principal actors : Caitríona Balfe , Judi Dench , Jamie Dornan , Ciarán Hinds , Jude Hill
38 In Hamburg