This Monday, at the Venice Film Festival, Pedro Almodóvar called out “empathy and generosity” and against “hate speech”during his speech at the presentation of his film ‘The Room Next Door’, a film that invites us to lose the fear of death and take refuge in friendship. “My film is a response to the hate speeches that we hear every day, it is the opposite of these speeches,” Almodóvar said at a press conference, accompanied by Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore, stars of the director of La Mancha’s first feature film. in English, which is competing for the Golden Lion at the Mostra.
Based on Sigrid Nunez’s novel ‘What Is Your Torment?’, the film follows the final days of a former war journalist (Swinton) suffering from terminal cancer who decides to end her life and asks an old friend, a writer of autofiction, whom she has not seen for a long time (Moore), to accompany her in her farewell.
“Even though we are talking about something personal, I want to convey this message (…) to all unaccompanied children struggling to reach our borders and that according to the Spanish far right, at least, what it means is that The government sends the navy to stop them from entering“, said Almodóvar. For the Spanish filmmaker, “the film is about a woman who is dying in a world that is dying” and the solution is “that each person, from home, demonstrates against this denial” because “the planet is in danger.”
He also said that “it is a film in favor of euthanasia” and He considers it “terrible” to have to behave “like criminals”.He recalled that Spain is the fourth European country to regulate euthanasia and considered it “urgent” that this type of measures be extended throughout the world or that in their absence, the doctor’s decision is “sufficient”.
“All beliefs are very important, but if you are not faithful to them, you attack everyone and you become the owner of your own existence, as the character of Tilda does,” he stressed. Shot between Madrid and New York, “The Room Next Door” is a contained and luminous melodrama despite the theme.
“It’s always difficult to talk about death” said the director of “All About My Mother” or “Volver”, who recognizes that the film helped him better understand what it means. “I felt closer to the character of Julianne in that situation, I can’t understand that something alive has to die, even if death is everywhere (…), for me every day that passes is one less day that I have left, even if I would like to feel that it is one more day that I live,” he admitted at 74 years old.
“I try to be optimistic,” Almodóvar added, recalling a dedication that the writer Almudena Grandes once made to him. “He said that joy is the best resistance and I think he’s right.” Tilda Swinton, who first worked with Almodóvar in the short film “The Human Voice” (2020), explained that she has always felt a special connection to his cinema since she discovered him in the 1980s.
“It showed a world that was very recognizable to me,” he noted, “but whereas in London at that time the culture was trying to marginalize us, Pedro was always at the center of everything, of the Movida, of cultural change, we admired him and since then I consider myself faithful to his church.” Moore highlighted the “emotional strength” of Almodóvar in his films and especially his view of female friendship.
“It’s hard to find stories about female friendship, and even harder if the friends are older,” said the 63-year-old actress. The cast also includes John Turturro, Alessandro Nivola and Esther McGregor, as well as Juan Diego Botto, Raúl Arévalo, Victoria Luengo and Melina Matthews.
