Bitter Christmas

Almodóvar wrote and directed the film. The cast includes Bárbara Lennie, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón and Victoria Luengo. The story runs on two timelines. In one, an ad director named Elsa gets through a turbulent Christmas weekend in 2004. In the other, a celebrated filmmaker turns that weekend into a screenplay, and the line between his life and his fiction starts to blur.

This is a festival screening of a film about the making of a film, so expect a layered, character-driven story about grief, family and the people closest to a writer. The film is in Spanish and runs 111 minutes. The State Theatre is a small room, built in 1935 as Austin's first theatre designed for movies. It holds about 300 people, so the screen feels close.

Almodóvar premieres are rare in Texas, and this one comes with the crowd of a film festival. The Austin Film Festival has long used the Paramount and State Theatres for its marquee screenings, and the historic Congress Avenue setting suits a film about storytelling. It is a good pick for anyone who follows Almodóvar or likes films about how stories get written.