Studiocanal has announced the release of a new box set of six newly restored films from one of Spain’s most celebrated and truly original filmmakers, Pedro Almodóvar. Complete with brand new interviews and extras material, the collection will be available to own on DVD and Blu-Ray in September. Restoration of the sound and image for all six films was done from the original negatives and supervised by Pedro’s younger brother and long time producing partner Agustín Almodóvar.
The films in The Almodóvar Collection were early indicators that the director would become one of the most consistently exciting and internationally renowned filmmakers in the world. Already having gained huge success in Spain, Almodóvar’s breakout success was Women on the Verge of A Nervous Breakdown, which gained him international recognition. During his career, he has won one Academy Award, four BAFTAs, six European Film Awards and two Golden Globes.
BFI Southbank will host a two-month Pedro Almodóvar season from 1st August – 5th October, with special on-stage appearances from Almodóvar, actor Rossy de Palma and fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier, with more guests to be announced in due course. Also running alongside the Almodóvar season will be In Almodóvar’s words... a series of 13 of Almodóvar’s favourite Spanish films selected to screen at the BFI Southbank.
The Almodóvar Collection comes to UK Blu-ray and DVD on 19th September 2016 from Studiocanal at an RRP that we are still awaiting confirmation.
The included films and the special features for each are as follows:
Dark Habits [Entre tinieblas] (1983)
Dark Habits follows nightclub singer Yolanda (Cristina Sánchez Pascual) who is blighted by drugs and has herself committed to a charity convent. The nuns there include a writer of sensationalist pulp fiction, a drug addict and a masochist. But their private lives and perverse foibles are plunged into doubt when a new mother superior arrives to take charge.
This was Almodóvar’s first film be made with a film company and Producer, rather than the more guerrilla style of his previous projects. Almodóvar has since distanced himself from the film as he felt that he had to bow to commercial considerations though it is an important film in his progression as filmmaker.
Blu-ray and DVD extras:
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NEW: Around Dark Habits – Featuring interviews with: Marisa Paredes, Mercedes Guilamon, Anabel Alonzo, Lluis Homar, Felez Martinez, Alaska Miguel, Angel Silvestre and Augustin Almodóvar
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Introduction by critic José Arroyo
What Have I Done to Deserve This? [Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto!!] (1984)
What Have I Done to Deserve This? stars Carmen Maura as Gloria, an over-worked mother and wife addicted to amphetamines in order to have the energy to cook and clean for her ungrateful family, as well as cleaning other people’s homes for extra cash. Gloria’s husband Antonio (Angel de Andres-Lopez) is a chauvinist taxi driver who gets entangled in a plot to forge Hitler’s memoirs. Her mother in law (Chus Lampreave) is a tight-fisted but loveable old lady who longs to move back to the village, whilst one of her sons deals heroin and the other son is adopted out to a lecherous dentist.
Blu-ray and DVD extras:
Law of Desire [La ley del deseo] (1987)
Law of Desire was Almodóvar’s seventh feature. This wildly overblown and extremely raunchy film was instrumental in bringing the director to a wider audience outside of his native Spain. Never one to ostracise audiences, Almodóvar offers something to offend and delight everyone in equal measure.
Popular film director Pablo Quintero (Eusebio Poncela) is frustrated by his relationship with straight ‘lover’ Juan (Miguel Molina) and soon Pablo’s blue-collar lover is banished to the country. Itching to fill the gap in Pablo’s life is the handsome and horny Antonio (Antonio Banderas), an obsessive fan of Pablo’s homoerotic movies. Also pricking Pablo’s personal and professional attention is Tina (a superb Carmen Maura), his sex-changed brother who is now a lesbian.
Blu-ray and DVD extras:
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NEW: Around Law of Desire – Featuring interviews with Esther Garcia, Alberto Iglesias, Elena Anaya, Javier Camara, Rossy di Palma and Victoria Abril
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Introduction by critic José Arroyo
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Trailer
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown [Mujeres al borde de un ataque de "nervios"] (1988)
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown was the film that truly brought Almodóvar to the attention to a worldwide audience, his first international commercial success and earned him his first Oscar nomination.
The film follows pregnant actress Pepa (Carmen Maura) who is distraught by a break-up with her actor boyfriend Iván (Fernando Guillén) and prepares a gazpacho laced with sleeping pills. She is, however, saved from suicide by her best friend Candela (María Barranco), a fugitive from justice. Pepa’s ex-lover's grown son (Antonio Banderas) arrives with wife-to-be Marisa (Rossy de Palma) in answer to Carmen's "room to let" newspaper ad. Marisa inadvertently ingests the gazpacho and as she blissfully snoozes, her fiancé inaugurates an affair with Carmen's fugitive friend.
Blu-ray and DVD extras:
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NEW: Around Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown – Featuring interviews with Pedro Almodóvar, Loles Leon and Rossy di Palma
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Introduction by critic José Arroyo
Kika (1993)
Kika was harshly treated by critics on release however, of Pedro Almodóvar’s work, Kika is perhaps the one that benefits most from re-viewing and re-assessment. The story concerns Kika (an astonishing Veronica Forque), a Madrid makeup artist whose relationship with Ramon (Alex Casanovas) leads to criminal schemes involving Kika’s maid Juana (Rossy De Palma), Juana's amorous, criminal brother Pablo (Santiago Lajusticia), and Ramon’s youth-obsessed father Nicholas (Peter Coyote). Overseeing it all, is the muckraking, reality tabloid television show presided over by the formidable Andrea Scarface (a uniquely attired Victoria Abril).
The film attracted controversy because of a scene in which Almodóvar depicts Kika’s rape at the hands of Pablo with humorous detachment, however the moment has since come to be more popularly viewed as further evidence of the director’s tribute to the power of women.
Kika also marks Almodóvar’s first collaboration with the controversial fashion designer, John-Paul Gaultier who designed the costumes for the film. Almodóvar and Gaultier have since gone on to work together on two further films, Bad Education (2004) and The Skin I Live in (2011).
Blu-ray and DVD extras:
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NEW: Around Kika – Featuring interviews with Victoria Abril, Rossy di Palma and Anabel Alonzo
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Introduction By José Arroyo
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Pedro Almodóvar interview
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Cast and crew interviews
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The Characters
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The Music
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Trailer
The Flower of My Secret [La Flor de mi secreto] (1995)
The Flower of My Secret is one of Almodóvar’s more accessible works, a precursor to All About my Mother and is also widely regarded as amongst the director’s most emotive and courageous works.
The film follows Leo Macías (Marisa Paredes), a romantic novelist who writes her trashy tomes under the pseudonym Amanda Gris. When her marriage begins to dissolve, Leo falls into despair, leading her to drink and to lose her knack for writing. To make matters worse, Ángel (Juan Echanove), a newspaper editor with a romantic interest in Leo, hires her to write a scathing review of Amanda Gris, not realizing Gris is Leo's nom de plume. Nominated for multiple Goya awards and featuring superlative performances from Almodóvar’s repertory cast as characteristically colourful characters, this is an intimate yet comic portrait of suffering and pain.
Blu-ray and DVD extras:
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NEW: Around The Flower of my Secret – featuring interviews with Rossy di Palma, Augustin Almodóvar,
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Pedro Almodóvar and Marisa Paredes
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Cast and crew interviews
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Introduction By José Arroyo
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Trailer
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