All about my mother, in a cycle of films on women

Film still of Todo sobre mi madre (All About My Mother) © RR

When it was released in 1999, Todo sobre mi madre (All About My Mother) catapulted Pedro Almodóvar onto the international stage and earned him the Festival de Cannes Best Director Award that same year. This year, the film opens the 2017 Cinéma de la Plage with panache. The president of the Feature Films Jury, who will present this evening Cinéma de la Plage's screening, talks about his film and penchant for outdoor cinema.

Cinéma de la plage

I am very moved that Todo sobre mi madre (All About My Mother) is being screened at Cinéma de la plage because I love outdoor cinema. The first films I saw as a child were screened outdoors. I am no fetishist, the only real fetish in my life is that whitewashed wall that was used to project films in the summer.

On motherhood

The film evokes motherhood, different kinds of motherhood. Even fathers become mothers in this film. It talks about family as an emotional cornerstone for the child who needs to be educated, fed and supported by the family. A multi-faceted family with parents who may be transvestites, transgendered, lesbian, adoptive mothers… where the binary male-female gender distinctions disappear. The family is an emotional core of mutual support where the child receives all needful things. For that, there is no need to be baptised or Catholic.

The action

The film is about women's capacity for action, a capacity I have observed in the women in my family. The women who brought me up in the fifties often had to adapt to men to avoid problems. This capacity not to lie but to act in the interest of others is very feminine, and Todo sobre mi madre (All About My Mother) is about that as well.