Pain and Glory(HKLGFF 2019)

Multiple Winner at Cannes Film Festival 2019: Best Actor (Banderas), Best Composer (Alberto Iglesias); Palme d’Or and Queer Palm Nominee (Pedro Almodóvar).

With classics including ‘Volver’ and ‘Matador’, cult filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar is a key shifter in Spanish cinema, known especially for his pioneering filmic exploration into sex and identity. In ‘Pain and Glory’, Almodóvar — a confessed sufferer of crippling panic attacks and chronic back pain — alludes to his own upbringing and career through character Salvador Mallo, the director facing a murky creative block. In deteriorating health, Mallo revisits characters from his sun-kissed youth in ‘60s Valencia, relives the wounds of his first love, and retraces his creative path. Almodóvar’s own frailties are laid bare on this canvas of Spanish stone.