The Silence of Almodóvar: Crusade for women’s liberation.

Film director, screenwriter, producer and former actor, Pedro Almodóvar doesn’t need introduction. He came to earn distinction as a filmmaker during La Movida Madrileña, a cultural renaissance that followed the death of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco. His first few films characterised the sense of sexual and political freedom of the period.

Now he’s picked his next feature film, Silencio (Silence). Nobody would recognise a silent Almodóvar, but one that screams out loud his opinions through his celebrated and passionate films such as The Skin I Live In, Talk To Her, Volver and All About My Mother.

The film, which is called Silence because that’s the principal element that drives the worst things that happen to the main female protagonist, it is set to begin shooting in April.

This time, the casting won’t include his usual suspects. Penelope Cruz or Antonio Banderas don’t quite fit the roles of this new movie that it is a return to the cinema of women.

The new movie is set to join an Almodóvar tradition of strong female lead characters trying to carve out lives for themselves. Another example, his musical film Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, which has just been adapted for the London stage, with Tamsin Greig in the lead role. The musical, at London’s Playhouse Theatre, is based on Almodovar’s Oscar-nominated 1988 black comedy, a film with a large political intention, Almodóvar’s story of women liberating themselves after being messed about by men is in part a tribute to the women who he thinks rescued Spain from the civil war.

Tags: GEFilms, Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios, Paloma Fraile, Pedro Almodovar, Silencio, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown