Pedro scuttles across the garishly coloured office, his trade-mark wiry black hair pointing skyward. This most Madrile±o of Madrile±os has lost his voice as a result of partying. Almod≤var cannot help himself. Just as his production company, El Deseo (Desire), is slap in the middle of Madrid, he too is a fulcrum for the busy party life of the city. Tapas must be eaten standing up as life and art are thrown around in shouted conversation; flamenco singers duel with each other early into the morning, and waiters deliver precariously balanced tall glasses of icy drinks to small tables. That's all very well, but there is a film to be made this morning and it's already after midday.
Pedro gasps at his younger brother Agust∅n Almod≤var, who swiftly gathers the troops for the production meeting. The family of El Deseo run around, their brightly coloured clothes clashing with the yellow, lilac and red walls. It is still morning by Spanish standards, but the meetings must get under way now that Pedro has arrived.
"We have already lost three days this week," explains Agust∅n. "These fiestas eat into our time and we need to catch up." Pedro Almod≤var is 50 this year, well past any pretence of acting the enfant terrible, but his colour and vitality still stand out as the internationally perceived flag of Spanish cinema. He is currently shooting his 13th film, Talk to Her, featuring Geraldine Chaplin and Marisa Paredes (who starred in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown). Pedro is, naturally, the director, the man with the story and the vision, but it is the staff of El Deseo who are the engine of the project.
They are a tightly knit bunch. Agust∅n is executive producer. They founded El Deseo together in 1986, a brave move to form an independent production company without the backing of a media conglomerate. Director of production, Esther Garc∅a, has worked in this Spanish trinity since then, when she was an assistant on Matador, the dΘbut of spotty youth Antonio Banderas. Today, she dashes past, grinning in red, hair askew. "No time! No time!" she declares, eyes on Pedro's frantic movements.
The name of the group encompasses everything about Almod≤var's films: passionate story-telling and art with more than just a dash of hot sex. Law of Desire was the first film to be produced by the brothers' new company in 1987 and it remains Agust∅n's favourite. "Perhaps it is because it was the first and it was so difficult at the time, with the budget and everything," he smiles.
The physical resemblance between the two brothers is startling, with one distinct difference. Where Pedro sports a shock of black hair, August∅n is virtually bald, except for a silver, half-moon buzz cut.
They have worked together from the beginning, when Pedro persuaded his friends from the Madrid-based theatre group, Los Goliardos, to act in his short films shot on 16mm. It was then that he formed the professional and social bond with actress Carmen Maura, who has since starred in six of his films and would be known to most for her lead role in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. That was the film that established Almod≤var internationally with an Oscar nomination. The "gazpacho opera" set in a Madrid apartment remained the highest-grossing Spanish film ever until it was finally surpassed this year.
In the early days, Agust∅n helped his brother out by playing small roles - a taxi driver, a pharmacist, or a familiar face in the crowd. (This casting of friends in cameos is a tradition that has been maintained to this day. In fact, most of the 10-strong production team featured as the Barcelona theatre audience in the Oscar-winning All about My Mother.) Gradually, August∅n's role changed from brother and supporter to producer and manager. Since the making of Women on the Verge, he has been executive producer on all of Pedro's films.
"We are an exceptional company in Spain," he says. "It is a very small film industry and we are in the luxurious position of being able to do what we want because Pedro is so successful."
That success is not doubted by anyone, but, as in all countries with small film industries, there is a certain amount of begrudgery of his fame. One insider in the Madrid film school openly admitted to not liking him and thinking him big-headed. Another director of the San Sebastiβn film library said he "does not consider Almod≤var's films to be Spanish".
Most of all, many believe that Almod≤var has not given back enough to the Spanish film industry. That may be so, but perhaps it could be said that he did not get much himself in the first place. A self-taught director who inflicted his wacky stories and movies on friends and acquaintances, he did not have the chance to go to film school. In Madrid in 1970, Gen Franco's government closed the old school, believing it to be a birthplace of immoral corruption. The shiny bright ECAM film school that attracts hundreds of hopefuls to the capital today has only existed since 1985.
The Spanish film industry recognised the director's work with Goyas (the Spanish equivalent of Oscars) for All about My Mother in 1999. They now sit proudly in his office alongside the BAFTAs and numerous bronze statuettes. The Oscar is at home, as all good Oscars should be, but the trophy cabinet overfloweth.
Even so, the president of the Spanish Film Board raises his eyebrows at the mention of the director and El Deseo. "I wouldn't call them a family, more of a motley crew," he says, smiling wryly.
They certainly are. While associate producer Michel Rubens is talking about Talk to Her, a cropped, peroxide blonde bursts in the pink door.
"Hola infantes!" shouts Loles Le≤n, assistant producer, the actress who played the receptionist in Women on the Verge. "Yo chica!" replies Rubens. He pauses to take a phone call. The Colombian is the only fluent English speaker at the production house, so he must diplomatically volley the many international requests for the director's time.
'That was another advertising agency," he explains. "Pedro's turned them all down, Coca-Cola, Yves Saint Laurent, the lot. He just won't make ads, though the money would be huge." Although El Deseo and Almod≤var are, by anyone's standards, a winning team, a team of 10 must be employed full-time, and that costs money. Pedro usually only makes one film every two to three years. The company therefore keeps a collective eye out for the chance to produce others or to do co-productions. And their own early experience of making short films is key to the process of selection.
"Shorts are the perfect way to measure talent, vocation and passion," explains Agust∅n. "And they usually have to get their friends to work for free," he adds smiling.
In 1992, a young Basque maverick called Alex de la Iglesia approached El Deseo with a bizarre script for a short film. That became the 1993 full-length feature Acci≤n Mutante, directed by Alex and produced by the brothers Almod≤var. Since then, the young talent has moved on to become the pet director of rivals Lolafilms, with whom he made the most successful Spanish movie of 2000, La Comunidad. Other young directors have also benefited indirectly. Cesc Gay won the Prix de Jeunesse at Cannes in 2000 for Krampack, an exploration of Spanish teenage sexuality.
"Pedro was the first to start filming strange things, so I guess he gave me the inspiration to do what I wanted to do," says the Barcelona-based director.
The story outline for Talk to Her is certainly consistent with the usual odd themes of Pedro's films. To paraphrase Rubens: it is about two men who are in love with two women who are not really here, and there's a lot of dance in it.
Pedro works closely with his cast before shooting begins, adjusting scripts and character traits to suit the personalities of the actors. Locations also influence certain changes to the story. All About My Mother evolved in tandem with the slightly seedy underbelly of Barcelona. All changes are decided by Pedro and the team works to implement them. That is the job of El Deseo. "We are here for him!" declares Rubens. And he is not exaggerating.
"My role is to make the film that Pedro wants," says Agust∅n. "I will make it but I will let him know if I don't like it. It's not just to make a bad comment but because he wants my opinion. Not only as his producer but as his brother."
In the background, Pedro dashes out of the purple ladies' loo. The eyes are wide, the hair is wild. There is no time to lose. There is a film to be made. What better place to get inspiration for Talk to Her?
Talk to Her is due for release next spring