Pedro Almodóvar’s The Skin I Live In opens at Cornerhouse on Fri 26 August. Set to be the must-see film of the summer, priority booking for Cornerhouse Members will open at 14:00 on Tue 19 July and will run until 12:00 on Mon 25 July.
The Skin I Live In sees superstar director Almodóvar reunite with actor Antonio Banderas to tell a macabre tale of surgical obsession. Dr. Robert Ledgard (Banderas) is an eminent plastic surgeon and respected lecturer. But in his isolated home he carries out experimental surgical work on Vera, a beautiful woman whom he keeps as a willing prisoner. Determined in his pursuit to create flawless artificial skin, Ledgard’s revolutionary work soon infringes on the boundaries of bioethics. But driven by obsession, the doctor continues with his experiments as he carries out increasingly sinister tests to perfect his invention.
The director’s celebrated visual style and his signature themes of betrayal, sexual identity and death, are ever present in this film which adapts its screenplay from Thierry Jonquet’s novel Tarantula. The Skin I Live In owes many of its influences to Buñuel, Hitchcock, Lang and Hammer horror, not forgetting Georges Franju’s 1960 film Eyes Without a Face.
Like The Skin I Live In, Franju’s fascinating fantasy also amalgamates horror and fairytale. To complement the release of The Skin I Live In, Franju’s Eyes Without a Face will receive a rare, one-off screening at Cornerhouse on Wed 31 August. The screening will be introduced by Andy Willis, Reader in Film Studies at the University of Salford. For an additional insight into Almodóvar’s latest feature and the auteur’s body of work, join us on Tue 20 August when Dr. Nuria Triana Toribio, Senior Lecturer in Spanish Cinema at the University of Manchester, will deliver a One Hour Intro on the themes and preoccupations which dominate Almodóvar’s work.
To book tickets for The Skin I Live In and Dr. Nuria Triana Toribio’s one hour intro during the priority booking period, Cornerhouse Members should visit Box Office in person or call 0161 200 1500, quoting their membership number when booking. To find out more about Cornerhouse Membership, which offers discounts on cinema tickets, books and in our Café Bar, click here. Tickets for Eyes Without a Face will go on general sale from 14:00 on Tue 19 July.