{"id":5875,"date":"2021-10-22T02:39:04","date_gmt":"2021-10-22T06:39:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=5875"},"modified":"2021-10-22T02:39:04","modified_gmt":"2021-10-22T06:39:04","slug":"new-york-film-festival-parallel-mothers-press-conference-with-director-pedro-almodovar-actress-penelope-cruz-actress-milena-smit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=5875","title":{"rendered":"New York Film Festival : Parallel Mothers \/ Press Conference with Director\u00a0Pedro Almod\u00f3var, Actress\u00a0Pen\u00e9lope Cruz, Actress\u00a0Milena Smit\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Synopsis<\/strong> : Two women, Janis and Ana, coincide in a hospital room where they are going to give birth. Both are single and became pregnant by accident. Janis, middle-aged, doesn’t regret it and she is exultant. The other, Ana, an adolescent, is scared, repentant and traumatized. Janis tries to encourage her while they move like sleepwalkers along the hospital corridors. The few words they exchange in these hours will create a very close link between the two, which by chance develops and complicates, and changes their lives in a decisive way.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Press Conference with Director\u00a0Pedro Almod\u00f3var, Actress\u00a0Pen\u00e9lope Cruz, Actress\u00a0Milena Smit\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Q: Thank you for showing us the movie earlier this summer. Dennis Lim and I were able to watch the film in Madrid, and once we saw it with you, we knew we had our Closing Night. So it\u2019s special for us to have you presenting it. Thank you for coming, and traveling all this way despite everything to be here.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

PA: Thank you.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Q: So I\u2019ll just dive in with a couple of questions to start and then we will take some questions from the audience.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

I think, Pedro, it might be good to start with some historical context. This image at the end of this film is one of the most striking of the images I\u2019ve seen in all of your films. It\u2019s such a striking image and it represents so much. So if you want to share with us a little bit of historical context, I think it would be useful for us to hear from you about this dark chapter in your country\u2019s history, and why it was something you wanted to explore.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

PA: This is the more explicit political movie that I did. The protagonists are these two ladies, it\u2019s about them. But I wanted to create a link between the protagonist Janis with the past because this is what I\u2019m talking about \u2013 about the darkest side of the Spanish civil war.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

[in Spanish \u2013 translated by his interpreter ]\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The link that I create in the film between the history and the main character comes through her grandmother. She\u2019s an orphan, her grandmother has raised he, and her grandmother has told her the story of how her great-grandfather was killed and has left her this legacy. This desire to find his [grave] and exhume his [body].\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So this is the way in which I link someone who belongs to the present day, like Janis, to the history that happened 80 years ago, which is through her relationship to her grandmother and the legacy that she has left.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The central axis that I set up in the film \u2013 I really wanted to talk about the mass graves and in this particular case, about the truth about them and the truth that the character is seeking that of course goes in contradiction, as you have all seen now in the film, to the way in which she\u2019s handling truth in her own life. So this axis, this contradiction, is something that the character needs to come to terms with.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

PA: Yes, to the end, because perhaps you don\u2019t know: Spain is the second country after Somalia with more missing people. Actually, now it\u2019s like 140,000 missing people that are courtesies. The Spanish society has a debt with the families and with the victims until the moment that they don\u2019t open all those mass graves. I think that the civil war is not ended. So we need to do that just to close that awful period of our history.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Q: How is this subject discussed right now in Spain? Is it discussed?\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

PA: The movie happens between 2016 til 2019. Now \u2013 I mean last July, three months ago \u2013 there is a new law by the Socialist Party, which is in the government now, and that completely changed the situation. Now the administration that takes care \u2013 the name of the law is the \u201cley de memoria democraticum<\/i>\u201d and everything related [to] mass graves is a question para el estado<\/i>, for the state. It\u2019s a question for the state administration organization.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Interpreter: So through this new democratic memorial law, the state is now in charge. The administration is now in charge of taking care of the graves. So everything will change from this point on.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Because during the time period that the film takes place, those in charge are really private enterprises or NGOs that are having to take care of these cases.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Q: I want to bring Penelope and Milena into the conversation. Welcome, welcome back.<\/strong><\/p>\n

So Penelope, I would love to know how does this collaboration work? Does Pedro just call you up and say \u201cI have another movie for you\u201d or does he just send you the script? In this case, how did the conversation begin, specifically?<\/p>\n

PC: It can happen in different way, all of them magical for me. The first time he shared with me something about this story, we were here in New York, doing press for \u201cAll About My Mother\u201d. He told me a few things about the story that later changed, evolved a lot into something else. But that was the root of the story.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Then when we were in total lockdown, and confined in Madrid, we did one of our calls, and we did a face time, and he told me, \u201cOh, by the way, I took this story out of the drawer and I\u2019m writing it again and I\u2019m thinking about you for the character.\u201d Imagine during lockdown with all of us like, we didn\u2019t know until when, what was the future, what kind of future, and we had no idea. We didn\u2019t. We knew nothing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And then he gave me this injection of hope and excitement, and knowing that that would be the plan in the horizon, for us to do this wonderful story together. So maybe from all those times that he has shared those stories with me, [the] news with me, this is my favorite because it was during extreme circumstances.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I think we all need to have faith that at some point we all would be able to get out of the house again. First of all, that we would make, it, that we would survive. I mean, I was terrified; we didn\u2019t know. I took it very seriously from the beginning. And then we didn\u2019t know if it was a plan for a year later or five years later. We had no idea. But I will always remember that phone call.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Q: When you showed us the film this summer, Pedro, one of the first things I asked you was how you had been spending your pandemic. Because clearly you had made two movies in the course of just 18 or 19 months. So you clearly just focused yourself on work to navigate this time period.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

PA: Yeah. For me, it was the only way — just to write and to shoot. It was the only way, like an escape from the reality. It surrounded me. I could see on TV and in the newspapers huge tragedies happening every day. But I concentrated myself in writing. Actually it was more productive than before, because during the three months of the confinement, I could be much more concentrated in the writing. Because as I could go out, I didn\u2019t see anybody. And it was the best way for me to finish the script.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Because it had a long time of cooking and there are many things that I didn\u2019t like at the beginning. So I could find out everything and finish in these three months. Just when the confinement finished then I start, because this is what I was doing during the last free week after confinement. Tilda Swinton was already in Madrid just for the rehearsal of \u201cThe Human Voice\u201d, so we had to postpone it, of course.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Then we took it again at the beginning of July [2020]. So we made the pre-production and then during the pandemia<\/i> we shot the short [film] that is thirty minutes. We were very lucky because we [had] not one case of being infected. My brother, who is also my producer, hired a sanitary team. He made us [have] a PCR every day to be sure that nobody [was infected] because it was the only way to be sure immediately.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

With that we shot \u201cThe Human Voice\u201d. We went to Venice, we were very successful. Then immediately after Venice Film Festival, we started to pre-produce \u201cParallel Mothers\u201d. So I think it was a more fertile time for me and I think it was because I preferred to be just working on<\/p>\n

Of course I was sensible about everything that was happening there. And also it made me suffer . But I did not want to be\u00a0 <\/span>obsessed with this situation. In general, for me, to make a movie is always a kind of run away from my life. Even if there are not tragedies, like here with the pandemia. But it was always that [it] drives me to another reality where I feel much better than in my own life.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Q: It gives you more control maybe?\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

PA: Yeah, yeah. For example, I feel, when I\u2019m working, when I\u2019m writing and shooting, I\u2019m feeling much more free than in my real life. I don\u2019t know how to explain it. The reality that we live day by day, I\u2019m not so curious and so daring like when I write or when I am shooting. I\u2019m more like a coward.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Not exactly, I mean, I don\u2019t have any word because my English is very limited. But yes, the moment when I feel completely free — and this is a wonderful experience — it is when I\u2019m writing. There [are] no limits for me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Q: Does this resonate, Penelope? You\u2019ve known Pedro a long time. These two parts of his life: the professional, the private. Do you see this dichotomy with him?\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

PC: Yeah. I\u2019m not with him when he\u2019s writing \u2013 but he\u2019s writing all the time. Even when we are traveling promoting one film, he\u2019s sometimes writing three scripts at the same time. I don\u2019t know how he does it, but [it\u2019s been] like this since I met him. But I can tell when we are shooting and when we are not. When we are shooting, I think Pedro is happier. When writing, shooting, in pre-production, post-production, traveling around the world with the movie, I feel that he\u2019s happier in those processes. And I understand because I identify with that.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

PA: Well, you have a life. You are a mother. You have a husband.<\/p>\n

PC: I have a life that makes me very happy, but even like this, even if I have children \u2013 that you know I\u2019m obsessed with, and they are the best thing I have in my life. I am a family-oriented person. I\u2019ve always been like that. I value that very much with time in my family, and raising my kids is my priority.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But it\u2019s true that I\u2019ve been doing movies since I was sixteen, and I understand what happens when you wake up in the morning and go to the set, and you just feel complete. We only have that as actors we can have it more often. Maybe we can do a couple of movies per year or three if they are not too long.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But for a director, I understand it\u2019s different. Everything is a different timing. So that\u2019s why I say, in his case it\u2019s very obvious for the people that know him as well as I know him, that he\u2019s so much happier when he\u2019s working. So I\u2019m telling him, \u201cEvery summer we have to be shooting a movie.\u201d Write in the winter, then we\u2019re very quick at editing because everything is so clear for him. Every summer, we shoot. He likes shooting in the summer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Q: Penelope, congratulations on this performance. It is an exceptional portrayal of this woman Janis. Tell us what struck you about Janis, what interested you in this woman? What drew you to this role?\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

PC: Everything from the first page \u2013 I was hypnotized. I use that word a lot with this film because I think it happened with the script, and it happens when you watch the movie. It has an incredible hypnotic effect. You\u2019re there and it keeps you so present and so there, you don\u2019t want to lose anything. It is so many details. It\u2019s a movie that if you watch [it] two or three times, you always will discover something new. I think he created something really, really special.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When I read it, I felt like once again, this is a perfect script and he\u2019s giving me an amazing opportunity with this character. It\u2019s true that all the characters that I\u2019ve played with Pedro have been complex interesting characters, difficult characters. Because a lot of people are asking me if this is my most difficult [role]. But all of them are, because he writes with so many layers that I don\u2019t think we can say any of the characters written by him for men and women are easy, because they are not easy personalities, or simple. They are complex, they are not just one side of them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But it\u2019s true that Janis is put under so much pressure. When you think one thing is solved, another bigger problem comes into her life, and it\u2019s constantly like that until the end of the film. And that was a beautiful challenge to have in my hands, and I am very grateful that he once again imagined me in doing something that he didn\u2019t see me do before.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He\u2019s done that constantly with me in my career \u2013 imagine that I could do something that I never did with him or with another director. That is the best gift that somebody can give you, and if it comes from a genius like him — because I don\u2019t like using that word lightly, but with him, that is the word that makes sense.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I think I can say that in a very relaxed way because it\u2019s just the truth. So to be so lucky to have this constant faith, and all these gifts that he\u2019s given me over and over in my life, I could not be more grateful and thankful.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

PA: I was the lucky one. I was the lucky director.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Q: What do you see in Penelope, Pedro, after all this time together?<\/strong><\/p>\n

PA: Well, the first time that I saw her I thought of course \u2013I saw her in her debut, \u201cJam\u00f3n, Jam\u00f3n\u201d [1994]. I remember very well the cinema [where] I saw the movie. I was very impressed, as she was very extremely young. I was impressed about the way she acted. She acted in a completely personal way that if I listen to that voice and that way of acting in other actresses, I thought that it was not in tune. But in her, everything was true and original, and with a kind of incredible strength, even being so young. So when I went out of the theater I thought that \u201cwell, this is the actress that I would like to work with.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Fortunately we met \u2013 I don\u2019t know how many years after \u2013 and it was mutual, fortunately.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

She was always at the moment too young for the character that I was writing. So then we could make it, just to work together, in Lifeless [\u201cLive Flesh\u201d?]. She was very young but anyway, I thought that it was the moment to start. She\u2019s only 8 minutes onscreen and I think she stole the movie [from] everyone.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know what year after [that] I met Stephen Frears — two years somewhere. He told me that he called her to make one of her American movies, \u201cThe Hi-Lo Country\u201d, a Western, because of that eight minutes in \u201cLifeless\u201d. So since then we really became close friends, and it\u2019s like part of my family.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Also, this is really an advantage you have, that once you feel that you are very well understood by someone and also that I understand her very well, this is a plus that you have at the moment of working. Also, she\u2019s [incredibly photogenic]. This is also very important.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Q: Michael Barker reminded me backstage that when we called to invite the film to screen at our festival tonight, one thing we said was we had to invite Milena Smit to join us at this event. So thank you for being here today, Milena. We\u2019re so excited to have you. Congratulations.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

MS: Thank you.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Q: In the old days, there were these legends of actors and actresses being discovered at a drug store or a candy store. In this case, your team found Milena on Instagram. Is this true?\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

PA: I think for me, Milena in the movies is the big revelation because she was new, and also we all were very impressed that everything she does is true. For me it\u2019s like [being] the witness of the birth of someone that is going to be a big star. Because I am sure that the future of Milena will be wonderful, that she\u2019s going to make many movies, and she\u2019s very young so she will have time to make many different types of movies.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Because also, the way of acting in my movie that could be the more usual is not her, exactly. She\u2019s another type of women. I think she\u2019s also very versatile physically. But I was impressed about her immediate truth of everything she says and she does. So we are in front of a very very near, or very close, superstar.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Q: Milena, same question I asked Penelope: about this character and how she resonated with you. But also, before you tell me that, you get a call from someone in Pedro\u2019s office saying \u201cWe saw you on Instagram\u201d, or how did this happen?\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

MS: [thru interpreter]: Thank you very much. I\u2019m very happy to be here and to be presenting this film here with Pedro and Penelope.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It was through a casting call and I did various tests until the last one which I did with Pedro and Penelope. So I never knew what all those tests were for until the very last casting. My agents did think it was a good idea to let me know ahead of my test with Penelope and Pedro. so we did various tests there at El Deseo.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I had never really read the full script because I only got parts of the script for the tests. During one of these parts of the script that I read which was an inflection point in the film, after performing it I cried a lot. It was shortly thereafter that I got the full script from Pedro with an inscription telling me that I was Ana.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Q : A question about the power of cinema as a tool of memory?<\/strong><\/p>\n

PA: I do think that films, other than the fact that they entertain us, they also play a role in bringing us close to issues that are happening socially [and] culturally. In this case, the people who excavate the tombs, they told me that they really gave me thanks for bringing visibility to an issue that is not talked about enough in Spain.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Now the situation, as I told you before, is very different. We don\u2019t know because the right wing is furious with this law. [It\u2019s] something that I really can\u2019t understand because it\u2019s a problem of humanity. The only thing that the families of the victims are demanding is just to have a place with the name of their grandfather or their great-grandfather; a place to bring some flowers, and to pray, if they are believers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But the right understand [it as] a political response and they think, like the character Ana says in one moment, that it only will help to open old wounds. It\u2019s not. It is not. It\u2019s a very simple and very human situation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Q: Let\u2019s take another question: about the inclusion of the relationship between these two women in the film: how was it added to the story? Did it feel very natural for the [actors]? The comment is that it\u2019s like a hetero-flexible, rather than a lesbian, relationship. How do you think about it?\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

PA: Especially if you pay attention to the end of the film, I try to show the creation of a very open and very heterogeneous family \u2013 inclusion, yes. For example, I don\u2019t really explain at the end of the film what the relationship is between them. Maybe they\u2019re still together. I personally think yes. What I want to show is a relationship amongst all of them, including the forensic anthropologists.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

They\u2019re both orphans: one because she lost her mother at a very young age, and the other one because her mother never paid any attention to her. They both feel this very deep sense of wanting to form a family.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So the first moment in which they form a family is when Ana comes to Janis\u2019s house merely to take care of the child but they\u2019ve already formed the family unit at that point.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Yes, of course you can label the relationship as a lesbian relationship. But I really think about it as something more fluid and more broad than that, where gender is not so much attached just to that one act of sexuality but that it\u2019s something that happens more naturally, almost spontaneously, between them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So, for example, I like to think from the very first scene: we\u2019re in the hospital where they\u2019re both pregnant and about to give birth, [and] from the very first moment there\u2019s already an inkling that Ana has been struck by Janis\u2019s beauty. Like a kind of crush.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And if I had to explain and enter into that really painful territory amongst couples where you ask who loves who more than who, then of course I would have to say that Ana is much more in love with Janis than Janis is with Ana. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But you can also say that Ana is much freer than Janis because Janis of course has this internal conflict because she knows that she\u2019s hiding something from Ana. But from that very moment, they\u2019ve already formed a family.<\/p>\n

And things have changed a lot over the last thirty years in Spain. Yes, traditionally, perhaps, or in the sense of a Catholic family, but that has changed profoundly in Spain. Really, what has happened is that the family structure is more a vocational [volitional?] family structure, one that is really based on love, so that you can have families made up of one mother, or two fathers, or two mothers. It\u2019s more about the love and the vocation for family than anything else.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Q: Penelope and Milena, did you think about the labels for these two characters\u2019 relationship, or labels for this family? How did you talk about it?<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

PC: I try not to think of labels, especially when I\u2019m working with Pedro. It\u2019s like when you read it, there are no labels anywhere, and it\u2019s one of the things that I love the most about the way he creates and about the way he sees life. And I really identify with his way because I\u2019ve been raised like that.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So I didn\u2019t have to find the etiquette of \u2013 what are they called, because right from now on they\u2019re going to also have sexual relationships. It goes beyond that because if you think about it, when Ana kisses Janis the first time it really catches me by surprise. But my character is in such a survival mode that I could hear the thoughts of my character.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I have very good memories of that scene because I feel like we really were not there, it was only the characters. And I could feel the thoughts of Janis and they were like \u2013 I could not share them with you now, it\u2019s not like I remember the words. But I remember the feelings. But actually, this is right as a next step for survival.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And of course Janis has a connection with her also in that way, but it\u2019s not just about sex. It\u2019s desperation: she always wanted to have a family, and she never could. Maybe this is going to be the way. Maybe this is the next step for her not to lose what she loves the most. And she\u2019s threatened by the laws [loss?]. And actually, this could be the solution. Its not like she\u2019s forcing, like oh, she wouldn\u2019t go to bed with her if she didn\u2019t feel something, but it\u2019s beyond that. It\u2019s like almost unconsciously [she\u2019s] a lion protecting that family.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I think all of that is in that shot when you just see the face of the two of us and what everyone is thinking on this: Let\u2019s go. Because I\u2019m not going to be alone again, I\u2019m not going to lose this family again.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So it\u2019s so many things going on in my head in that scene that the last thing I was thinking was \u201cHow would we label this relationship?\u201d I had no space for that.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Q: Milena, same question.<\/strong><\/p>\n

MS: I really agree with Penelope because of course, in the case of my character, what I really sense is that she is lacking love, she\u2019s lacking a kind of effective connection, given her situation with her parents and also the traumatic situation that she\u2019s been through. Suddenly she finds herself in front of someone who\u2019s giving her more support and more presence than her own family has. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And I really do think that we make a large mistake if we tried to place a label on the situation. For her, what happened between them was just really, truly an act of love. I think really that\u2019s fundamentally what describes a family, right? Is love. So for me, what happens between the two of them, we would make a mistake to add a label and call it a lesbian relationship.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Q: Question on balancing the nature of women as victims and women as heroes:<\/strong><\/p>\n

PA: They\u2019re fighters, first and foremost. If I just go to the case of Penelope who in the film is a mother, a single mother who has to balance motherhood with her work life, and that already is something that is not easy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And yes, it is primarily, for some reason, women who are searching for their relatives. The direct victim, of course, is the person who they have lost. But they themselves have been victims because the state has not given them the possibility to find their relatives. And they\u2019re also victims of democratic Spain.<\/p>\n

During the 40 years of the dictatorship, the families never spoke a word. They were too afraid. There was this enduring silence and this pathological fear. Once Franco died and the amnesty law of 1977, which is also known as a Pact of Forgetting [was passed], Spain now entered into democracy. At that point the Socialist Party was very careful and attempted to be very pragmatic, because there were still a lot of Francoist elements remaining in the other parties.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Because they were frightened. In fact, three years later in 1981, there was a military coup d\u2019\u00e9tat so at that point even the left forgot the victims. So the victims were condemned by Franco to a kind of non-existence. But then also the Pact of Forgetting under the amnesty law also condemned them to a non-existence.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Even though I sympathize with the Left, because it was something necessary for the transition, it is true that the ten years after this moment, once democracy had really established itself the left should have looked back and tried to remedy this mistake.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So I think that from that moment on, Spain really has a debt to its own past and to the people who have lost loved ones. Through the course of the last 40 years, it\u2019s not like the victims have not been remembered. They have been remembered, but there\u2019s always been this element of fear. It\u2019s not until just now, the current socialist government finally they\u2019re doing something concrete to remedy the situation. So now it\u2019s the generation of the great-grandchildren that are asking for the exhumation of the graves.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Q: Pedro, Penelope. Milena, thank you for sharing the movie, thank you for being here.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Here’s the trailer of the film.<\/p>\n