Spanish director Pedro Almodovar’s film 'Madres paralelas' (Parallel Mothers), starring Penelope Cruz, will open the Venice International Film Festival on September 1
Spanish director Pedro Almodovar’s film 'Madres paralelas' (Parallel Mothers), starring Penelope Cruz, will open the Venice International Film Festival on September 1
Spanish director Pedro Almodovar’s film 'Madres paralelas' (Parallel Mothers), starring Penelope Cruz, will open the Venice International Film Festival on September 1
Spanish director Pedro Almodovar’s film 'Madres paralelas' (Parallel Mothers), starring Penelope Cruz, will open the Venice International Film Festival on September 1

Culture

Film

Pedro Almodovar's film with Penelope Cruz to open Venice Film Festival

The world's oldest film festival will run from September 1 to 11

David Tusing

July 20, 2021

  • English
  • Arabic

Pedro Almodovar’s Madres paralelas (Parallel Mothers), starring Penelope Cruz, will open the 78th Venice International Film Festival in September.

The film, about two single and pregnant women stars Cruz along with Milena Smit and Israel Elejalde, and will debut as part of the competition slate on September 1.

“I cannot explain the joy and the honour, and how much this means to me without falling into complacency,” Almodovar said. “I am very grateful to the festival for this recognition and hope to be up to it”.

The acclaimed filmmaker has a long history with the world's oldest film festival and said that he was “born as a film director in 1983 in Venice.” He was given the festival’s Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in 2019.

Festival director Alberto Barbera said the film is “an intense and sensitive portrait of two women as they contend with a pregnancy with unpredictable consequences, women’s solidarity, and sexuality that is experienced in full freedom and without hypocrisy, all against the backdrop of a reflection on the ineluctable need for truth that is to be unwaveringly pursued.”

Cruz and the Almodovar are frequent collaborators, most recently on his 2019 film Pain and Glory, also starring Antonio Banderas. The film won Banderas the Best Actor prize at the Cannes film festival and earned Oscar nominations for Best Actor and Best International Feature Film

Parallel Mothers, which was shot during the pandemic, centres on three mothers.

"Janis and Ana meet in a hospital room where they are going to give birth. Both are single and got pregnant by accident. Janis, middle-aged, doesn’t regret it and she is exultant. The other, Ana, an adolescent, is scared, repentant, and traumatised. Janis tries to encourage her while they move like sleepwalkers along the hospital corridors. The few words they exchange in these hours will create a very close link between the two," reads a synopsis of the film.

The Venice International Film Festival is scheduled to run from Wednesday, September 1 to Saturday, September 11 on the sleepy beach island Lido.

The festival will also host the premiere of Denis Villeneuve’s anticipated adaptation of Dune, starring Timothee Chalamet and Zendaya, as well as David Gordon Green’s Halloween Kills in conjunction with Lifetime Achievement awards for its star Jamie Lee Curtis and Italian four-time Oscar winner Roberto Benigni.

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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

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Focus on gratitude: And do so deeply, he says. “Think of one to three things a day that you’re grateful for. It needs to be specific, too, don’t just say ‘air.’ Really think about it. If you’re grateful for, say, what your parents have done for you, that will motivate you to do more for the world.”

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