Following last year’s Oscar-nominated Parallel Mothers, the next full-length film from Pedro Almodóvar will be his feature English-language debut, an adaptation of Lucia Berlin’s stellar short story collection A Manual for Cleaning Women. Set to star Cate Blanchett, who will also produce, the film won’t begin production until next year, so in the meantime, the prolific Spanish director has found a new project.
He’ll embark on a new genre with “a different kind of western, which will be very colorful… very theatrical,” he revealed back in 2020. Now things are moving ahead on the project as Todo Almodóvar reveals more details. The short will be about 30 minutes in length and center on two men who have already been cast, though not revealed yet. The title of the film is Extraña forma de vida (roughly translated to Strange Way of Life), taking inspiration from the below song by Amália Rodrigues.
Shooting will commence in the Spanish city of Almería, home to many other westerns, including a handful from Sergio Leone. As for the genre, Almodóvar is quite a fan of westerns, from Johnny Guitar (which he paid homage to in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown) to even being in the running to direct Brokeback Mountain. The director even snuck in the title of this new short in 2019’s Pain & Glory, seen on the computer screen of Antonio Banderas’ character. It will mark his second short film in the last few years, following The Human Voice starring Tilda Swinton.