Opening Film: Bitter Christmas

We open GAZE this year with the dulcet melodrama and eye-wateringly beautiful designs of Almodóvar. In the director’s latest auto-fiction feature, we watch two parallel worlds unfold. Director Elsa, struggling with the recent death of her mother, runs from work and her adoring firefighting lover, Bonifacio, to Lanzarote with her friend Patricia. Dancing alongside Elsa’s ethereal melancholy is the world of director Raúl, typing Elsa’s life into existence for us. Elsa’s perspective is infused with Raúl himself, her relationships mirroring his own, including his producer Mónica and boyfriend Santi. As the complications of Mónica’s life start to appear in Elsa’s world, she becomes furious at Raúl for fictionalising a grief so close to home. These sensitively interwoven stories ask big questions around creative license, exploring how art and life are often painfully intertwined. The intricate web that Bitter Christmas proposes pays in dividends, with a deeply moving ending that offers contemplation about appreciating the ones we love and how we can take them for granted. With a typically brilliant Almodóvar ensemble and heightened moments of surreality, that will make you laugh and make you cry.

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Spain / 2026

1hr 52m

Tickets cannot be returned, nor money refunded, except in the case of cancelled, rescheduled or sold out events. Please contact [email protected] if you wish to return tickets to sold-out events. No tickets can be refunded on the day of the screening.