Bárbara Lennie, Leonardo Sbaraglia and Aitana Sánchez-Gijón star in Pedro Almodóvar's new film, Amarga Navidad, which has begun filming between Madrid and Lanzarote for release in 2026, El Deseo reported on Tuesday.
Victoria Luengo, Patrick Criado, Milena Smit and Quim Gutiérrez complete the main cast of this feature film by the director from La Mancha, the twenty-fourth of his career, in which he returns to Spanish after filming in English The Room Next Door, with Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton, in 2024.
The main actors in this film have already worked with Almodóvar before. Thus, Bárbara Lennie repeats as an Almodóvar girl after The Skin I Live In (2011). A few hours ago, Agustín Almodóvar shared a photo of the actress with his brother on his networks.
In the case of the Argentinian Leonardo Sbaraglia, he had a role in Pain and Glory (2019), while Victoria Luengo worked in The Room Next Door (2024). For their part, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón and Milena Smit were under the orders of the director from La Mancha in Parallel Mothers (2021).
Patrick Criado (who coincided with Luengo in Riot Police) and Quim Gutiérrez are making their debut in this universe, although the latter worked in Transient Lies, a series produced by El Deseo, a company owned by the brothers Pedro and Agustín Almodóvar.
The new film develops how life and fiction are inextricably linked, even painfully at times. According to the synopsis, Elsa (Bárbara Lennie) is an advertising director whose mother dies during a long bridge in December. She finds refuge in work, although it is more of a flight forward.
She works non-stop and, without realizing it, does not allow herself the necessary time to grieve for her mother's absence. Until a panic attack forces her to stop and take a break. Her partner, Bonifacio, is her lifeline in those moments of crisis.
Elsa decides to travel to the island of Lanzarote accompanied by her friend Patricia, who also needs to get away from Madrid, while Bonifacio stays in the city.
The story of these three characters, and some more, is narrated in parallel to that of the screenwriter and film director Raúl Durán, (Leonardo Sbaraglia), interweaving fiction and reality.
"I have always been interested in the relationship between fiction and life. I have finally managed to make it an organic part of the plot," says Sbaraglia, who gives life to the character of the filmmaker while typing on a typewriter in the video scene provided to the media.
Other images also appear that apparently represent a casting, a scene in which Lennie reads a book and another of Patrick Criado with what appears to be a firefighter's helmet.