Pedro Almodóvar has called for “empathy and generosity” and this Monday at the Venice Film Festival he condemned the “hate speech” of the extreme right regarding immigration. “My film is a response to the hate speech we hear every day, it is the opposite of that speech” he said during the press conference for his new film, ‘The Next Room’, starring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton.
Almodóvar explained that ‘The Room Next Door’ is about “a woman who is dying in a dying world” and urged the public to “each speak out from their own place” against hatred and also against “denialism” of climate change.
On immigration, Almodóvar has appealed to unaccompanied minors who “fight to enter our borders” and who are targeted by the Spanish far right through hoaxes. Almodóvar has argued that “turning immigrants into invaders is delusional, profoundly stupid and unfair.”
Almodóvar has also said that ‘The Next Room’ is “a film in favour of euthanasia” and has pointed out that he considers it “terrible” that people who wish to undergo assisted death “have to behave like criminals” in those countries where euthanasia is not yet regulated; this is not the case in Spain.
A film that deals, among other things, with death, ‘The Next Room’ has been received by the Venice audience with a 17-minute standing ovation. It is Almodóvar’s first feature film since ‘Parallel Mothers’ (2021) and the first shot entirely in English.
