International Film Club: "Pain and Glory", dir. Pedro Almodóvar (2019) (Spain)

In this engaging drama from Pedro Almodóvar, Salvador Mallo (Antonio Banderas), a Madrid-based filmmaker, suffers from two afflictions: debilitating pain and a chronic bout of writer’s block. When approached out of the blue by an estranged friend, Alberto (Asier Etxeandia), about introducing a new restoration of their old film "Sabor" together, the worlds of art and addiction become blurred as Salvador wrestles with heartbreak and his own creativity. "Pain and Glory" is a self-reflective, late-career masterwork from one of Spain’s finest filmmakers.

“Pain and Glory” opens our new 2026–27 season of the International Film Club here at UCI, which is entitled “Into the Abyss: Films Within Films.” Referring to the artistic practice of “mise en abyme,” which means literally both "to place into the center" and "to place into the abyss," the phrase, once derived from the traditions of medieval heraldry, now more commonly describes the practice of placing an image within another image — or in a cinematic context, the placing of a story within a story, or a film within a film. Nevertheless, whether it is the illusory depth of Diego Velázquez’s remarkable 17th century painting “Las Meninas,” which depicts not only various figures of the Spanish court but iconically also the painter himself caught in the reflection of a mirror in the background of the scene, or the selection of six films chosen for this year’s season of the International Film Club, these curious, one might even call them three-dimensional, works allow us to think differently about the art-form we love. Across these six films, the possibilities of what cinema can do are called into question, exploring how we connect with it, evolve alongside it, and what it does to us in turn, while spanning musical comedy, drama, and horror from the mid-century to the modern day. While each selection represents some form of mise en abyme — whether that is a story within a story or a film within a film — no film will be like the other, and one month may bring laughter and the other tears. Yet altogether each film represents a new dimension of cinematic possibility that we are excited to share with you all. As ever, the International Film Club is proud to celebrate these six brilliant works of self-reflexive cinema in UCI’s state of the art McCormick Screening Room (Humanities Gateway 1070), and our showings are always relaxed and always free of charge. We hope you will join us as we delve into cinema’s abyss!

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Co-hosted with: Illuminations: The Chancellor's Arts & Culture Initiative