Pedro Almodovar prepares a first feature film shot in the United States

Pedro Almodovar is currently preparing his first feature film shot in the United States, his production company announced Thursday to AFP, during the 76th Cannes Film Festival. "Yes, we want to do something in the United States. We are impatient but it is not yet defined," said Esther Garcia, producer of the filmmaker's company, El Deseo, on the sidelines of a panel on Spanish cinema at the Film Market.

Esther Garcia is the executive producer of the queer western Strange Way of Life, which the 73-year-old director presented Wednesday at the Cannes Film Festival. This short film, out of competition, follows the reunion of two men played by Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal, twenty-five years after their meeting. He was applauded at length at the end of his screening. The film, shot in southern Spain, was co-produced by fashion house Saint Laurent, which recently announced the creation of a division dedicated to film projects.

Asked by AFP if this American project could follow the same path, Esther Garcia answered in the negative. We will do it ourselves," she insisted. El Deseo ("The Desire"), the production company of Pedro Almodovar and his brother Agustin, is a success story of Spanish cinema, pioneer of independent cinema.

Before filming Strange Way of Life, Pedro Almodovar had begun adapting Lucia Berlin's book of short stories Handbook for Housekeepers, starring actress Cate Blanchett, but the project did not materialize. The Spanish director, a regular at the Cannes Film Festival, also won two Oscars in the United States, Best Foreign Language Film for All About My Mother in 2000 and Best Screenplay for Talk to Him in 2003.