Film review: ‘OFFICIAL COMPETITION’ by Nick Gardener from ‘Built For Speed’

Having opened the Moro Spanish Film Festival earlier in the year and now screening in general release is the movie industry satire, Official Competition.  The film, which stars two of Spain’s most famous actors, Penelope Cruz and Antonio Banderas, is largely a dig at weird, egotistical actors and the slightly ridiculous world they inhabit. Penelope Cruz plays lauded arthouse director

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Film review: ‘PARALLEL MOTHERS’, by Nick Gardener from ‘Built For Speed’

Splashed with vivid colour and featuring stories about relationships, solidarity and conflicts between women – particularly mothers and daughters – Pedro Almodóvar’s films are immediately recognisable.  HIs moving new film Parallel Mothers has all the unmistakable Almodóvar traits, but in exploring women’s lives this time, he links the personal and the political in a story about confronting the raw truth

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