AFI Latin American Film Festival: Closing Night: BITTER CHRISTMAS
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Closing NIght Eye-popping sweaters and interiors, the dramatic effect of a Chavela Vargas song, the sizzling screen presence of Rossy de Palma. Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar plays the hits before smashing his own playbook in this brilliant piece of autofiction, following the parallel stories of two self-obsessed filmmakers who contemplate the limits of inspiration. Bárbara Lennie is Elsa, a cult filmmaker whose string of flops caused her to transition into a powerful advertising executive. Suffering from splitting migraines, she relies on the care of her dedicated boyfriend, Bonifacio (Patrick Criado), a strapping firefighter who moonlights as an exotic dancer. The spark of a story, stolen from a friend, is perhaps the cure for her long creative drought. Argentine actor Leonardo Sbaraglia (PAIN AND GLORY, WILD TALES) is Raúl, an Almodóvar stand-in with the iconic tousled tuft of gray hair, who is nursing his own artistic demons. He struggles to write his new screenplay until he latche
