Lecture by Rachel Esterkin and screening of "Bitter Christmas" – Herzliya Cinematheque
Lecture and screening of the Spanish film “A Bitter Christmas” on 3 October 2026 at 17:00 at the Herzliya Cinematheque. The lecture will focus on Pedro Almodóvar.
Saturday | 3.10 | 17:00 | Herzliya Cinematheque
Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Cast: Bárbara Lennie, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón (111 min., Spanish; Hebrew and English subtitles)
Before the film, Rachel Esterkin will give a lecture: Pedro Almodóvar—“I Only Know How to Speak of Myself”
Elsa, a commercial director, loses her mother and finds refuge in her work. She continues working nonstop until a crisis forces her to stop and travel with her friend to Lanzarote. Meanwhile, Raúl, a director and screenwriter suffering from writer’s block, searches for his way back to his creative work. The screenplay he is writing gradually reveals itself to be Elsa’s story. She becomes a kind of alter ego for him, while the people close to him and their lives also find their way into the fiction.
Pedro Almodóvar returns to one of the themes that has occupied him throughout his career: the complicated relationship between life and art. What do we take from the people we love in order to create? When does inspiration become exploitation—and is it even possible to separate the stories we tell from the lives we stole them from?
Weekly events digest
The week's best events, in your inbox — free.
