Pedro Almodóvar premiered his first English-language feature film, ‘The Next Room’, at the Venice Film Festival this week. The film was greeted with a standing ovation lasting several minutes, and this Saturday it finally won the Golden Lion for best film.
This is the first time a Spaniard has won the award in 50 years, and the first time a Spanish feature film has won it. The only precedent was Buñuel in 1967, but ‘Belle de jour’ was a French film, while ‘The Room Next Door’ is Spanish despite being shot in English.
‘The Room Next Door’, which premieres in Spain on October 18, talks about friendship and death through two striking protagonists such as Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton. As we learned this week, it also contains a metaphor about hate speech, and a message in favor of euthanasia.
As El País reports, Almodóvar dedicated it to them: “It belongs to them. It is a film about two women (…) The film talks about a woman who is dying in a dying world. And about the person who decides to share her last days with her. Accompanying a terminally ill patient, knowing how to be by their side, is one of the great qualities we possess. Saying goodbye to this world cleanly and with dignity is a fundamental right, it is not political but human. I know that it goes against any creed that has God as the only source of life. I would ask those who follow it to respect and not intervene in individual decisions. Human beings must be free to live, and to die when life is unbearable.”
