After his heavy promo duties on The Skin I Live In, which debuted at Cannes and now heads for Toronto and New York festivals, Pedro Almodóvar is lending his curatorial skills to Los Angeles’ AFI Fest (which runs in Hollywood November 3-10) as guest artistic director. It’s the 25th anniversary of the fall film festival as well as Almodóvar’s 1986 film Law of Desire, which will screen at the fest, and his production company, El Deseo S.A.
Almodóvar will also curate a sidebar program of films that have inspired his work (to be announced in October). Last year’s guest director was David Lynch. “I have an enormous respect for AFI Fest, which has always been very generous with me, so I am very honored to be its Guest Artistic Director this year,” said Almodóvar. “This will give me the chance to present a selection of some of my favorite films along with one of my own, Law of Desire, on its 25th anniversary.”
AFI has showcased many of the Spanish filmmaker’s movies at the festival, beginning with the 1990 presentation of Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! through High Heels, All About My Mother, Talk to Her, Volver, The Headless Woman and Broken Embraces. AFI tributed Almodovar in 2004 and showed A Bad Education. “There is a long legacy of international cinema at AFI Fest,” said Jacqueline Lyanga, Festival Director of AFI Fest. “We’ve shown many of Pedro Almodóvar’s films and we’ve seen the extraordinary influence that his work has had on other filmmakers over the years. Almodóvar’s work embodies the cross-pollination of cinematic influences that fuel contemporary world cinema.”
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