In a climate where interesting movies aren’t having the easiest time at the sales market, I’m thrilled to see that Pedro Almodovar’s next film, Broken Embraces (with Penelope Cruz) has found a distro deal in North America through Sony Pictures Classics. Not that it’s much of a surprise, as the distributor and filmmaker have worked together many times before. But things are always changing, and no old relationship is ever set in stone. The ’50s-style noir, which Almodovar says hits several genres, is shooting now in Madrid and the Canary Islands.
Not much else has come to light on the film since I wrote about it in December of last year. Almodovar has recently called it his most “novel-like” script. That’s intriguing, since he previously said (while finishing the script last year) that it had come very easily, “in one go”. But my favorite bit of new info is that the heavily shadowed look will be inspired by a series of migraines suffered by the director which left him more photo-sensitive than a Mogwai. Fuel for dectractors should the film not satisfy (“This film gave me a headache!” Waah, waugh!) but I’ll be patiently excited to see what that actually means on film.