PENELOPE IN ALMODOVA'S NEW DRAMA

The film, titled Dolor Y Gloria, will chronicle a series of reunions, spanning the past and the present

Veteran director Pedro Almodovar has announced his next project, starring Antonio Banderas and his frequent collaborator Penelope Cruz.

The 68-year-old director, who is best known for the Oscar-winning film All About My Mother (Best Foreign Language Film, 2000) as well as Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) and Volver (2006), will be helming the film Dolor Y Gloria (Pain and Glory).

The film’s cast also includes Asier Etxeandia and Julieta Serrano. The project was announced by the Spanish director’s production house, El Deseo, and the production is expected to start in July this year, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Dolor Y Gloria will chronicle a series of reunions, some in the present and others in the past, as a film director ponders his creative decline.

“First loves, second loves, a mother, mortality, actors with whom the director worked, the Sixties, the Eighties and the present,” a film synopsis on the El Deseo site stated.

Unlike Almodovar’s earlier films, Dolor Y Gloria will feature male protagonists in Banderas and Etxeandia, with Cruz and Serrano in supporting roles.

Cruz and Banderas had also featured in Almodovar’s 2013 comedy, I’m so Excited. Both the actors are of Spanish origin. While both have huge Hollywood fame, the Spanish film Volver is considered one of Cruz’s best.

PENELOPE CRUZ AND ANTONIO BANDERAS HAD ALSO FEATURED IN PEDRO ALMODOVAR’S 2013 COMEDY, I’M SO EXCITED. CRUZ HAS DONE SEVERAL FILMS EARLIER WITH ALMODOVAR, MOST NOTABLY VOLVER

PHOTO: FRANCISCO SECO/AP Spanish actor Antonio Banderas Spanish actor Penelope Cruz PHOTO: ALESSANDRO BIANCHI