Pedro Almodóvar’s Gay Western “Strange Way Of Life” To Premiere At Cannes Film Festival
The award-winning filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar, who won an Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 1999 for All About My Mother and created camp classics such as The Law Of Desire, What Have I Done To Deserve This and Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown, has created a new 30-minute short film titled, Strange Way Of Life, which he has described as his “answer to Brokeback Mountain“. The film stars Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal as a pair of middle-aged gunslingers who reunite after 25 years apart.
Almodóvar, who is gay, was previously approached to direct the 2005 Oscar-winning drama Brokeback Mountain but turned it down as he felt he wouldn’t have full creative freedom.
“Nobody told me that – they said, ‘You can do whatever you want,’ but I knew that there was a limitation,” he told IndieWire. “It was impossible to have these two guys fucking all the time.”
Pascal, who is known for his roles in Narcos and The Mandalorian, spoke to Insider about how he came to join the project. He revealed that Almodóvar has long been one of his favourite writer-directors and that he was overjoyed to have the opportunity to work with Hawke. “Taking it all in was incredible,” he said.
The film will premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, and the official poster for the film has been released. The poster features Hawke and Pascal in character as the two gunslingers, looking rugged and handsome against a desert backdrop.
Almodóvar’s, Strange Way Of Life promises to be a powerful and moving exploration of love and masculinity, and fans of his previous work are eagerly anticipating its premiere at Cannes.
See behind the scene stills from, Strange Way Of Life here.
