All About My Mother (1999)

Essential Viewing

Spain/France

Feature Film

Original Title: Todo sobre mi madre

Writer/Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Cinematographer: Affonso Beato

Composer: Alberto Iglesias

Cast: Cecilia Roth, Marisa Paredes, Candela Peña, Antonia San Juan, Penélope Cruz, Rosa María Sardá, Fernando Fernán Gómez, Toni Cantó, Eloy Azorín, Carlos Lozano

When her son dies after being hit by a car, Manuela, a Madrid based nurse from Argentina, travels to Barcelona to find the boy’s father, but instead becomes involved with a pregnant HIV+ nun, a transvestite prostitute, and a middle-aged actress whom her son adored, in Almodóvar’s gorgeously photographed and affectingly acted melodrama; a gently funny and terribly moving tribute to all the mothers of the world. Iain.Stott