''Parallel Mothers'' ( es, Madres paralelas, links=no) is a 2021 Spanish

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...

film written and directed by

Pedro Almodóvar Pedro Almodóvar Caballero (; (often known simply as Almodóvar) born 25 September 1949) is a Spanish filmmaker. His films are marked by melodrama, irreverent humour, bold colour, glossy décor, quotations from popular culture, and complex narr ...

. The film stars

Penélope Cruz Penélope Cruz Sánchez (; ; born 28 April 1974) is a Spanish actress. Known for her roles in films of several genres, particularly those in the Spanish language, she has received various accolades, including an Academy Award and a British A ...

and Milena Smit and features

Aitana Sánchez-Gijón Aitana Sánchez-Gijón de Angelis (born 5 November 1968) is a Spanish-Italian film actress. Biography She was born in Rome on 5 November 1968, to a Spanish father , a history lecturer exiled from Francoism, and an Italian mother, Fiorella d ...

Israel Elejalde Israel Elejalde (born 1973) is a Spanish actor as well as a theatre director. Primarily a stage actor with television and film incursions, he had a breakthrough role, breakthrough film performance with his role in the 2014 film ''Magical Girl (fil ...

Julieta Serrano Julieta Serrano Romero (born 2 January 1933 in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain) is a Spanish theatre and cinema actress. Her prolific career began in the 1960s, and she has worked with directors Pedro Almodóvar and Ventura Pons. In September 20 ...

and

Rossy de Palma Rosa Elena García Echave (born 16 September 1964), known professionally as Rossy de Palma, is a Spanish actress and model. She is well known for her roles in films by Pedro Almodóvar such as ''Law of Desire'', ''Women on the Verge of a Nervou ...

. The film had its premiere as the opening film of the

78th Venice International Film Festival The 78th annual Venice International Film Festival was held from 1 to 11 September 2021. South Korean director Bong Joon-ho was appointed as the President of the Jury, marking the first time a South Korean director has been picked as the festiv ...

on 1 September 2021 where Cruz was awarded the

Volpi Cup for Best Actress The Volpi Cup for Best Actress is an award presented by the Venice Film Festival. It is given by the festival jury in honor of an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance from the films in the competition slate. It is named in honor o ...

. It was released theatrically in Spain on 8 October 2021 by

Sony Pictures Releasing International Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group (commonly known as Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, formerly known as the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group until 2013, and abbreviated as SPMPG) is a division of Sony Pictures Entertainme ...

. It was also the closing film of the 2021 New York Film Festival on the same day. The film earned two nominations at the

94th Academy Awards The 94th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), took place on March 27, 2022, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, Hollywood, Los Angeles. The awards were scheduled after its u ...

for

Best Actress Best Actress is the name of an award which is presented by various film, television and theatre organisations, festivals, and people's awards to leading actresses in a film, television series, television film or play. The first Best Actress aw ...

(Cruz) and Best Original Score (Iglesias).

Plot

Photographer Janis Martínez does a photo shoot with renowned forensic archaeologist Arturo. She asks him if his foundation will help excavate a

mass grave A mass grave is a grave containing multiple human corpses, which may or may not be identified prior to burial. The United Nations has defined a criminal mass grave as a burial site containing three or more victims of execution, although an exact ...

in her home village, where her great-grandfather and other men from the village were killed and buried during the Spanish Civil War. Arturo agrees to review the case with his foundation; he and Janis then sleep together and Janis becomes pregnant. She decides to keep the baby and raise it alone, against Arturo's wishes, whose wife is undergoing chemotherapy, but wants to be with Janis. Janis later shares a hospital room with Ana, a teen single mother; they give birth at the same time. After both babies are held for evaluation, they are released, and Janis and Ana go their separate ways. Janis and Ana stay in touch, keeping one another updated on their babies' progress. Arturo arrives one day asking to see baby Cecilia; he reacts strangely, confessing that he does not believe the baby is his. Janis does a maternity test, which reveals that she is not Cecilia's biological mother, but she decides not to tell anyone. Months later, Janis runs into Ana working at a cafe near her home; Ana has left her mother's home to fend for herself after her mother left to pursue acting on the road. Janis invites Ana up to her apartment, where Ana tearfully reveals that her baby Anita has suffered a

crib death Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is the sudden unexplained death of a child of less than one year of age. Diagnosis requires that the death remain unexplained even after a thorough autopsy and detailed death scene investigation. SIDS usual ...

. Janis asks for a photo of Anita, which confirms her suspicions that her and Ana's babies were swapped in the hospital. Janis later offers Ana a job as a live-in maid, watching over the house and baby Cecilia. She collects saliva samples from Ana and Cecilia without telling her they are for a maternity test, whose results confirm that Cecilia is Ana's daughter. Ana later reveals that her pregnancy was the result of a

gang rape Gang rape, also called serial gang rape, group rape, or multiple perpetrator rape in scholarly literature,Ullman, S. E. (2013). 11 Multiple perpetrator rape victimization. Handbook on the Study of Multiple Perpetrator Rape: A Multidisciplinary Re ...

by her classmates, and her father pressured her into staying silent to avoid negative press attention. The budding sugaring-like relationship between Janis and Ana further develops into a casual sexual relationship, but Janis is unable to commit fully to Ana who wants more from her. Arturo arrives with news that his foundation has approved the excavation of the mass grave, and also that his wife has recovered from cancer and they are separating. He and Janis celebrate with a night out on the town, making Ana jealous. Ana's mother also comes by to reconnect with Ana, admitting to Janis that she feels like a terrible mother but wanted so badly to pursue her dream as an actress. Janis finally admits the truth to Ana, who reacts angrily and leaves in the night with Cecilia, to Janis' dismay. She calls Arturo and breaks the news to him as well; he spends the night with her as they console each other. The next morning Ana calls Janis, having calmed down, and says that Janis is still welcome to see Cecilia and be a part of her life. Months later, Janis and Arturo travel to her home village, where he gathers information about the grave from surviving relatives and prepares for the excavation with his team. Ana later arrives with Cecilia, and Janis reveals to her that she is three months pregnant. When asked what she will name the baby, Janis says Ana if it is a girl and Antonio if it is a boy (after her great-grandfather). The excavation is a success, and the village gathers at the exhumed grave to mourn their lost loved ones.

Cast

Production

In February 2021 it was announced that

was ready to direct his new film entitled ''Madres paralelas'', with a cast headed by

and

. On 12 March 2021, it was reported that Pedro Almodóvar intended to integrate Anya Taylor-Joy into the main cast of the film.

Principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as actor ...

began on 12 March 2021 in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

, Spain, and concluded on 22 April 2021. Shooting locations included Madrid,

Torrelaguna Torrelaguna () is a municipality in the Community of Madrid, Spain. It covers an area of 43.40 km2. , it has a population of 4,724. History Public transport Torrelaguna has three line buses. They are: Line 197: Torrelaguna - Madrid (Pl ...

and Torremocha de Jarama. Produced by

El Deseo El Deseo (also known as El Deseo S.A.) is a film production company owned by Spanish film producers the Almodóvar brothers (Pedro and Agustín). The company has financed all the films directed by Pedro starting from The Law of Desire in 198 ...

and Remotamente Films AIE with the support of

RTVE The Corporación de Radio y Televisión Española, S.A. (; ), known as Radiotelevisión Española or RTVE, is the state-owned public corporation that assumed in 2007 the indirect management of the Spanish public radio and television service know ...

and

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...

, the movie also received funding from the ICAA.

Release

On 4 February 2021,

Pathé Pathé or Pathé Frères (, styled as PATHÉ!) is the name of various French people, French businesses that were founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France starting in 1896. In the early 1900s, Pathé became the world's largest ...

acquired the UK distribution rights to the film. On 23 April 2021,

Sony Pictures Classics Sony Pictures Classics Inc. is an American film production and distribution company that is a division of Sony Pictures. It was founded in 1992 by former Orion Classics heads Michael Barker, Tom Bernard and Marcie Bloom. It distributes, produc ...

acquired the North American, Australian and New Zealand distribution rights to the film. The film had its world premiere at the

on 1 September 2021. Distributed by Sony Pictures Entertainment Iberia, it was intended to be theatrically released in Spain on 10 September 2021 but was postponed to 8 October. It was released in the United States on 24 December 2021. It was released theatrically in the United Kingdom on 28 January 2022, and was the first film released under Pathé's new term deal with

Warner Bros. Pictures Warner Bros. Pictures is an American film production and distribution company of the Warner Bros. Pictures Group division of Warner Bros. Entertainment (both ultimately owned by Warner Bros. Discovery). The studio is the flagship producer of ...

along with '' The Duke'', after their distribution agreement with Disney expired on 30 June 2021. Its theatrical release poster, featuring a lactating nipple, was removed from

Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...

due to its rules regarding nudity. The decision was criticized by the "

free the nipple Free the Nipple is a topfreedom campaign created in 2012 during pre-production of a 2014 film of the same name. The campaign highlights the general convention of allowing men to appear topless in public while considering it sexual or indecent f ...

" movement, leading to an apology from Instagram.

acquired the exclusive distribution rights for the Latin-American region, aiming for an early 2022 release, even if theatrical openings were not ruled out at the time of the announcement. A theatrical window of 15 days prior to streaming was the choice for Argentina, with the "in a few theatres" was released on 3 February 2022.

Reception

At its opening night world premiere, the movie received a nine-minute standing ovation from Venice Film Festival attendees in the Sala Grande. It was submitted to be the Spanish entry to the

alongside '' Mediterraneo: The Law of the Sea'' and ''

The Good Boss ''The Good Boss'' ( es, El buen patrón, links=no) is a 2021 Spanish comedy-drama film directed and written by Fernando León de Aranoa and starring Javier Bardem. A corporate satire, the plot tracks a charismatic and manipulative factory owner m ...

'', but the latter film was the final official selection.

Top ten lists

The film appeared on a number of critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2021:

Accolades

References

External links

* {{Authority control 2021 films 2021 drama films 2021 LGBT-related films 2020s female buddy films 2020s Spanish films 2020s Spanish-language films El Deseo films Female bisexuality in film Films about mother–daughter relationships Films about photographers Films directed by Pedro Almodóvar Films scored by Alberto Iglesias Films set in Madrid Films shot in Madrid LGBT-related drama films Sony Pictures Classics films Spanish drama films Spanish LGBT-related films