Jake (Ethan Hawke) and Silva (Pedro Pascal) in Strange Way of Life © 2023 Iglesias Más / El Deseo
Strange Way of Life by Pedro Almodóvar will be presented in the Official Selection and in world premiere, with the director and the two lead actors Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal in attendance. Western shot in the South of Spain, this short is the filmmaker’s second English-language experience, after The Human Voice in 2020. The screening will be followed by a conversation with Pedro Almódovar and the filmmaking team.
A man rides a horse across the desert that separates him from Bitter Creek. He comes to visit Sheriff Jake. Twenty-five years earlier, both the sheriff and Silva, the rancher who rides out to meet him, worked together as hired gunmen. Silva visits him with the excuse of reuniting with his friend from his youth, and they do indeed celebrate their meeting, but the next morning Sheriff Jake tells him that the reason for his trip is not to go down the memory lane of their old friendship….
I must say no more so as not to give away all the surprises of the script.
The strange way of life referred in the title alludes to the famous fado by Amalia Rodrigues, whose lyrics suggest that there is no stranger existence than the one that is lived by turning your back on your own desires.
Pedro Almodóvar
Strange Way of Life
Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello presents Strange Way of Life, a film produced by El Deseo, written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar.
Starring Ethan Hawke, Pedro Pascal, Pedro Casablanc, Manu Ríos, George Steane, José Condessa, Jason Fernández, Sara Sálamo, Ohiana Cueto, Daniela Medina.
The film is produced by Agustín Almodóvar with Esther García as executive producer and Bárbara Peiró, Diego Pajuelo and Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello as associate producers.
The music is composed by Alberto Iglesias.
In his very first movie in 1980, Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls Like Mom, Pedro Almodóvar shows all the vitality, plurality and emancipation that characterize post-Franco Spanish society. It was with Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown that he became known to the general public in 1988. With a resolutely sensitive cinema, he has invited since his debut, viewers to question universal themes: love, desire, childhood, motherhood. He has placed women at the center of his work, thus showing his passion for the women he grew up with and admired so much.
Pedro Almodóvar won the Best Director award for All About My Mother in 1999 when it was first selected for the Festival de Cannes. In 2004, Bad Education was screened as the opening film, a first for a Spanish film. Pedro Almódovar then received the Best Screenplay award in 2006 for Volver, which had been selected in Competition. President of the Jury in 2017, he awarded the Palme d’or to The Square by Ruben Östlund. Two years later, he presented the very personal Pain and Glory in which Antonio Banderas’ deeply moving performance earned him the Best Actor award from the Jury chaired by Alejandro González Iñárritu, crowning one of the most beautiful collaborations in the history of cinema.
The Festival de Cannes is delighted to welcome Pedro Almodóvar on the steps of the Palais des Festivals to present Strange Way of Life with Ethan Hawke, Pedro Pascal, Anthony Vaccarello, Manu Ríos, Jason Fernández, José Condessa and George Steane by his side.
