First screened at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, Pedro Almodóvar's powerful and passionate semi-autobiographical melodrama follows the intertwining stories of two boys, Enrique (Fele Martínez) and Ignacio (Gael García Bernal), who fall in love at an abusive Catholic school and are parted by a jealous paedophile priest. Sixteen years later, Enrique, now a successful filmmaker, is casting about for an idea for a new film when a young cross-dressing actor, claiming to be Ignacio but known as 'Angel', approaches him with a short story based on their schooldays together. Enrique decides to use the story, and casts Angel in the film's lead role, despite his discovery that Angel is not in fact Ignacio, who died three years earlier shortly after completing the story, but his younger brother. Enrique's film also includes scenes in which the grown-up Ignacio tracks down the Catholic priest who abused them as boys, and these scenes soon become mirrored by real-life events. Almodóvar moves away from his trademark quirky comedy with this dark and brooding drama, using a complex 'film-within-a-film' structure to create a noir-like sense of mystery and blurred identity, and to explore the relationship between fantasy and reality.

Seven films by acclaimed Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar.

Tie Me Up Tie Me Down
Recently released from a mental institution, Ricky (Antonio Banderas) sets in motion his grand plan. Hunting down the porn star with whom he once had sex, Ricky tries to convince her to be his wife. However, when she's somewhat reluctant to take up his offer of marriage, he vows to tie her down to endear himself to her...

Bad Education
Bad Education narrates the reunion of two young men in early 80s Madrid, as the city starts to breathe a new air of freedom. Fifteen years earlier, in the darkness of a Catholic school, the two young men had discovered sensuality and a common hatred of the priests from whom they received their ‘bad education’. Now, in the new and liberated Madrid, both men--a filmmaker and an aspiring actor--revisit their early years together. As they try to uncover the truth about themselves, each other and the other characters in their story, they realise that things and people are not as they first seem.

All About My Mother
Single mother Manuela (Cecilia Roth) takes her seventeen-year-old son, Esteban, to see a stage performance of 'A Streetcar Named Desire' as a birthday treat. Tragically, Esteban is killed when he chases after a taxi carrying his favourite actress, Huma Rojo (Marisa Paredes). Consumed with guilt, Manuela decides to go in search of Esteban's father, whose identity she never revealed to her son. She finds out that he has had a sex change and is now called Lola the Pioneer, and along the way meets various characters, including transvestite La Agrado (Antonia San Juan) and AIDS-infected nun Sister Rosa (Penelope Cruz), who help her with a painful journey of self-discovery.

Talk To Her
Benigno (Javier Cámara) is a housebound nurse who falls in love with a young dancer, Alicia (Leonor Watling), he sees rehearsing through his window. Marco (Darío Grandinetti) is a journalist who falls in love with a bullfighter, Lydia (Rosario Flores), after being assigned to interview her. When Alicia and Lydia are involved in separate accidents which send them both into a comas, Benigno and Marco meet at the hospital and unpredictable consequences promptly ensue.

Volver
Raimunda (Penélope Cruz) and her sister Sole (Lola Dueñas) are visited by the apparition of their mother (Carmen Maura), who has returned to reconcile with her daughters and resolve an issue that has haunted the family since her death. In this family drama, the living and dead co-exist without discord creating a filmic experience which is at once hilarious and yet filled with a deep, genuine emotion.

Broken Embraces
Harry Caine is a successful writer but a man who writes, lives and loves in darkness. Fourteen years ago, Harry was in a brutal car crash on the island of Lanzarote, resulting in not only the loss of his sight, but of something much greater. However Harry Caine is a pseudonym and only a few people know Harry's real identity and of the life he led before the accident. Now Harry has decided to tell the moving and terrible story of his former self. A story of "amour fou", dominated by love, jealousy, treachery and fatality.

The Skin I Live In
Antonio Banderas stars as Robert Ledgard, an eminent plastic surgeon whose attempts to cultivate a new form of human skin have led to years of experimentation on a live woman, Vera (Elena Anaya). But as the story of Vera's past emerges, it becomes clear that Robert has a questionable agenda of his own as he manipulates her face and body for his own purposes.

Antonio Banderas and Carmen Maura star in this Spanish black comedy written and directed Pedro Almodóvar. The film follows Pepa Marcos (Maura), a distraught TV actress considering suicide after her long-time lover Iván (Fernando Guillén) leaves her without warning. When she lets out her flat, the new tenants turn out to be Iván's son Carlos (Banderas) and his fiancée Marisa (Rossy de Palma) which further complicates matters. Meanwhile, Pepa's friend Candela (Maria Barranco) is desperate to contact her after learning that her former lover is wanted by the police on terrorism charges.

Spanish comedy drama written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar. Antonio Banderas stars as Antonio Benítez, the obsessive fan of gay film-maker Pablo Quintero (Eusebio Poncela), who becomes infatuated with him following the release of his latest movie. After learning Pablo is in love with Juan (Miguel Molina), Antonio tracks Juan down and kills him in a jealous rage. When Pablo learns of Juan's sudden death he is distraught and crashes his car following a run-in with the police who want to question him over the crime. Waking up in hospital with amnesia, Pablo is nursed back to health by his transsexual sister Tina (Carmen Maura). However, when he discovers Antonio is posing as Tina's new lover in an attempt to get close to him, Pablo faces a race against time to get to him before Tina gets hurt.

In a convent in Madrid a band of nuns called the Humble Redeemers practice their particular brand of the Catholic Religion under their motto, 'Sin Is Our Chosen Path'. Yolanda, a nightclub singer, witnesses her boyfriend die from an overdose, and with the police out to question her, she decides to take refuge with the nuns. The convent specializes in the salvation of murderesses, but their benefactor has stopped coming up with the money, and, fearful that they may have to sell the place, the nuns welcome Yolanda. Yolanda encounters an unusual religious life: a heroin-addicted lesbian Mother Superior, a soft porn writing nun, another into acid and one who wrestles tigers.

Spanish black comedy written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar. The film follows young make-up artist Kika (Veronica Forque) as she starts a relationship with the stepson of a philandering American writer living in Madrid. After being called to the mansion of Nicholas Pierce (Peter Coyote) to make-up the corpse of his stepson Ramón (Alex Casanovas), Kika is shocked when Ramón turns out not to be dead and is revived by her attentions. Later, the pair start dating and decide to move in together, but their future is then put in jeopardy when Kika begins an affair with Nicholas and Ramón's ex-psychologist and lover decides she wants him back.