Pedro Almodovar
Australian Cinematheque
GOMA
Stanley Place
South Brisbane
Sth Brisbane Station
Until Sep 2
A $9 5 Film Pass $36
Conc $7 5 Film Pass $28
Memb $6 5 Film Pass $24
www.qtix.com.au

From the past masters of Spanish art to the contemporary master of Spanish film, Brisbane audiences are in for a treat with the biggest retrospective of Pedro Almodovar films to grace our screens.

Almodovar's films have been a tour de force in cinema for some 30 years now, making him perhaps the most recognised and embraced Spanish film maker in the English speaking world. His unique combination of black humour, melodrama, emotion and suspense have become his signature along with his themes exploring the disenfranchised, women's roles (particularly the housewife) and the juxtaposition of sex and religion, all converging to make films that are so visceral they jump out of the screen. As Almodovar says, 'My cinema is impregnated with cinema'.

From his 1980 film Pepi, Lucy, Bom and Other Girls like my Mother through career highlights Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988), Tie me Up! Tie Me Down! (1990) and Volver (2006) to his latest offering at last year's BIFF The Skin I Live In (2011), there's nothing to throw away for fans or first-timers.

*Top photo: Production still from Matador 1986 Director: Pedro Almodovar Image courtesy: Contemporary Films, London.
*Bottom: Production still from The Skin I Live In 2011 Director: Pedro Almodovar Image courtesy: Paramount Pictures.