AFI Latin American Film Festival Lines Up Almodóvar and Luna
Pedro Almodóvar’s “Bitter Christmas” will close the Silver Spring festival, while Diego Luna’s “Ashes” sits near the front of a 43-film program built around Latin American cinema during National Hispanic Heritage Month.
Pedro Almodóvar’s “Bitter Christmas” and Diego Luna’s “Ashes” are among the major titles in the AFI Latin American Film Festival lineup, Yahoo Entertainment reported on August 26, 2026. The festival runs September 16 through October 7 at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center in Silver Spring, Maryland. For film readers, the draw is not only the names. AFI is placing Almodóvar’s new self-reflexive melodrama at closing night, Luna’s fourth feature as director near the start, and Manuela Martelli’s Chilean thriller “The Meltdown” in the same early stretch. That is a real programming statement, not just a famous-name garnish.
“Bitter Christmas” Gets the Closing Slot
According to Yahoo Entertainment, AFI will close the festival with “Bitter Christmas,” Almodóvar’s latest feature. The film reunites him with Argentine actor Leonardo Sbaraglia, who appeared in “Pain and Glory.” Yahoo reported that the movie follows two self-absorbed filmmakers weighing whether inspiration can end a long creative drought.
That premise already sounds like late Almodóvar staring straight at the machine that makes late Almodóvar. The Cannes reviews in the reporting point in the same direction. The Hollywood Reporter wrote that the film premiered in competition at Cannes and received a warm response, with a six-and-a-half-minute ovation at the Grand Théâtre Lumière. THR also reported that it marks Almodóvar’s return to Spanish-language filmmaking after “The Room Next Door,” his English-language feature that won the Golden Lion at Venice.
The movie has divided critics in the most useful way: not over whether it is recognizably his, but over how much that recognition gives back. IndieWire’s David Ehrlich called it a “fun and twisty meta-drama” and graded it a B. Variety’s Guy Lodge found it enjoyable and art-directed with the expected precision, but wrote that it does not leave the viewer with as much to hold onto as “Pain and Glory.” Deadline’s Pete Hammond described it as minor Almodóvar, while still calling it a fascinating look inside the filmmaker’s head.
For an AFI audience, that is a good closing-night argument. A festival should not only hand you masterpieces already sealed in amber. Sometimes it should send you out arguing over an artist who still knows exactly where to put the knife.
Photo: Kevin Paul · CC BY 4.0 · source
