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Bitter Christmas (Baby + Carer)
Filmhouse88 Lothian Road
Mon 31 Aug · 10:30
About this event
Screening as part of Baby and Carer screenings . Bitter Christmas tells two alternating stories, one starring Elsa, an advertising director, in 2004, during a long weekend in December. The second takes place in 2026 and stars Raúl, a screenwriter and director who is writing a script that we soon discover is the story of Elsa, her boyfriend Bonifacio, and her friends Patricia and Natalia. Mixed with fiction, Elsa is, in a way, Raúl's alter ego, who, like him, resorts to autofiction as a solution to a long period of creative drought. He looks inside himself, and he can't help but also look at the people who make up his most intimate universe: his partner and his assistant. The film narrates the close relationship between reality and fiction, between inspiration and life, exploring the limits of autofiction and stories within stories. In this regard, lauded director Pedro Almodóvar notes Bitter Christmas as "the film where [he's] been cruelest with [him]self". Critics have been much kinder to him though - the film won the Cannes Soundtrack Award when it premiered in competition for the Palme d'Or at the 2026 edition of the festival.
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