A well-told story can be as absorbing and affecting shared during a live Q&A as it can be delivered on the silver screen. Launched last year, our Cinema Stories video series spotlights meaningful moments of film history, artistic influences, and personal anecdotes captured during intimate conversations with filmmakers at Film at Lincoln Center over the years.

The latest Cinema Stories features Pedro Almodóvar sharing his fascination with Luis Buñuel and The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz, a 1955 film by Buñuel shot in Mexico and known for its exploration of death, a theme very important in Spanish culture. Almodóvar’s admiring story of the director was part of an On Cinema conversation with Kent Jones during the 57th New York Film Festival in 2019, where Almodóvar’s Pain and Glory was a Main Slate selection, his 11th throughout the festival’s history. Almodóvar’s early features What Have I Done to Deserve This? and Law of Desire were also featured in the annual New Directors/New Films festival in 1985 and 1987, respectively.

Watch below.

For more Almodóvar, watch his full On Cinema talk from the 57th New York Film Festival and more of the filmmaker’s visits to Film at Lincoln Center.