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Almodóvar’s Autofiction Divides Critics at Cannes

It raises a sharp ethical question about using real lives for art as it competes for the Palme d’Or.

Overview

  • The film premiered to a star-studded red carpet and press screenings on Tuesday at the 79th Festival de Cannes and opened immediate critical debate.
  • Autofiction stages a filmmaker’s creative crisis in a layered, self‑reflexive narrative in which a director draws on a collaborator’s private trauma to fuel a new movie.
  • Multiple critics praised the film’s visual style and Bárbara Lennie’s performance, calling it among Almodóvar’s most beautifully shot recent works.
  • Other reviewers called the picture self‑indulgent and repetitive, arguing it too closely revisits the director’s familiar obsessions and can read as an autoparody.
  • The film puts 76‑year‑old Pedro Almodóvar back in Palme contention and has intensified festival discussion about authorship, representation, and the moral costs of turning real lives into art.