10/03/2006

Although the theatrical release of Pedro Almodóvar's new film is set for March 17, the town of Puertollano, in the director's home region of Castilla-La Mancha, will nevertheless host the world premiere of Volver [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Agustín Almodóvar
interview: Carmen Maura
interview: Pedro Almodóvar
interview: Pénélope Cruz
film profile] tonight.

By express wish of the filmmaker, the screening will be attended by over one hundred locals, who worked as extras on Almodóvar's 17th feature. This decision seems like a tribute to the people from Castilla-La Mancha in the form of a premiere of a film that itself pays homage to that same region, where Almodóvar had already shot The Flower Of My Secret in 1995.

"Volver (lit. "Return") is a title which includes several returns for me", said Almodóvar. "I am back to comedy, I am back to the feminine world and I am back in La Mancha".

The film also marks the highly anticipated return (to Almodóvar, that is) of Carmen Maura, 17 years after Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, and Penelope Cruz, six years after All About My Mother. The actresses head a cast that includes Lola Dueñas, Chus Lampreave, as well as Yohana Cobo and Blanca Portillo, two newcomers to the director's world.

Produced by Madrid-based company El Deseo, the film has been announced as a mix of genres ("a dramatic comedy", "an ‘Indiana Jones’ of domestic adventures") inspired by the director's childhood memories and by the way people from La Mancha integrate death into their lives. The ghost of a mother (Maura) returns to contact her daughters, but here death is not synonymous with terror, and the general atmosphere of the film seems to be far from the dark tone that characterised A Bad Education [+see also:
trailer
film profile].

"Volver is not a surrealistic comedy, though sometimes it does seem like one. The dead and the living co-exist nonchalantly, which evokes some hilarious situations or genuine and intense emotions", explained the director.

Cineuropa will publish a Film Focus on Volver on Friday, March 17.