(Paris) Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar will present a highly anticipated short film, shot in English with Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal, at the 76th Cannes Film Festival, organizers announced on Tuesday.
Strange Way of Life will be screened “in official selection and world premiere”, the festival said in a press release, and will be “followed by a meeting” with the director and his team.
Expected as a sort of response to Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain (2005), Strange Way of Life is a western that tells the story of a rancher, Silva, played by The Last of Us actor Pedro Pascal, and of a sheriff, played by Ethan Hawke.
The two men reunite 25 years after working together as hitmen.
“The strange way of life referred to in the title alludes to the famous fado of Amalia Rodrigues, whose lyrics suggest that there is no existence stranger than the one one lives while turning the back to his own wishes,” Pedro Almodovar said in the statement.
This is the second time that the director of Talk to Her, High Heels or All About My Mother has shot in English, after a first short film, The Human Voice, with Tilda Swinton, presented in Venice in 2020.
A filmmaker emblematic of the liberation of morals and of Movida in Spain, Almodovar is a regular at Cannes, where he notably presented Bad Education at the opening in 2004 and for which he chaired the jury in 2017.
He had awarded the Palme d’or to The Square, by Swedish director Ruben Östlund, who will chair the jury this year.
The rest of the line-up for the 76th Cannes Film Festival (May 16-27) is due to be revealed on Thursday. The latest Martin Scorsese film Killers of the Flower Moon, the new Indiana Jones and the opening film, Jeanne du Barry by French director Maïwenn, with Johnny Depp, have already been confirmed.
