VENICE - The Room Next Door, latest work from Pedro Almodóvar (and the first shot in English), which begins with a scene in the historic Libreria Rizzoli in Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, Milan, is in competition at the 81st Venice Film Festival, where it received a warm reception from the press. The bookshop, a true cultural reference point of the city with a stock of approx. 40K works, is clearly recognisable in the opening sequence of the film where one of the two main characters, Ingrid, a writer of semi-autobiographical novels – played by Julianne Moore – is signing copies of her latest book.
The film is based on the novel by Sigrid Nunez What Are You Going Through. The cast includes Tilda Swinton, as the other main character Martha, a war correspondent and Ingrid’s dear old friend, plus John Turturro, Alessandro Nivola, Juan Diego Botto, Raúl Arévalo, Victoria Luengo, Alex Hogh Andersen, Esther McGregor, Alvise Rigo, Melina Matthews.