Los Javis with Almodóvar: "If OnlyFans had existed in the '80s, I would have made movies about him."

"It's something that has never been done before, a tribute to the best director in Spain ," said Javier Ambrossi (one of the two parts that make up the duo commonly known as Los Javis ) this morning at Espacio Fundación Telefónica , where the three chapters of Pedro x Javis were presented, a documentary tribute that the creators of La Mesías have made to Pedro Almodóvar , and which will be released on Movistar+ on June 19.

The project was actually born at the beginning of last year, with that strange rave/show that Los Javis decided to put on at the Teatro Calderón to celebrate the success of their series Messiah. It came together entirely later, at the Goya Awards , and it actually makes so much sense that the only thing that's surprising is that it hadn't been done sooner. It's undeniable (as they themselves confirm) the impact that Almodóvar's filmography has on the directors of The Call , who seem more than willing to take up the mantle from the La Mancha filmmaker . "We're always overly ambitious," joked Javier Calvo (the other Javi). "We wanted to make a 23-episode series , one for each film, but in the end it ended up being just three."

According to the directors, the series which covers Almodóvar's filmography and life —inseparable, after all, from one another—aims to "bring back that moment when silence and reflection were possible." "There's something about putting together the pieces of Pedro's career that connects very well," Calvo noted, while explaining the arduous work of making the documentary (if that's what you can call it), in which the production company El Deseo has lent a hand: "When we went to the warehouse and saw all the legendary things there, like the posters... I think more than one person will be moved to tears."

The three chapters that make up Pedro x Javis feature numerous cameos and are composed of blocks or themes that are undoubtedly representative of Almodóvar's filmography. The format is simple: the Javis, sitting on a sofa, interview the director from La Mancha and lingering on passages from his films, without much sequence, to better understand the life of a director both loved and hated in equal measure, who for many is a direct descendant of Luis Buñuel. On screen appear not only the women (and some men) fundamental to Almodóvar's work ( Loles León, Chus Lampreave, Carmen Maura, Julieta Serrano, Carmen Machi, Rossy de Palma, Penélope Cruz, Bibi Andersen , a Marisa Paredes to whom a nice tribute is paid, etc.), but also all those personalities who currently and in some way orbit around Los Javis ( Macarena García, Brays Efe, Albert Pla , Amaia, Nathy Peluso, Álex de Lucas, Alana S. Portero, and the list goes on).

In some ways, Pedro x Javis (not Javis x Pedro, because sometimes the order does alter the product) aims to mix the past with the present and show the similarities between the director from La Mancha and the directors of La Mesías , clearly influenced by the underground cinema of the Movida Madrileña , to the point that at some point they have been showered with criticism for that very thing. Just as Alaska and Mario were criticized in the past for apparently selling a punk image and then "embracing many of the ideas of the right" or leading a "turbocapitalist" lifestyle, Los Javis have also been involved in controversies, sometimes somewhat delirious: last New Year's Eve they were criticized on social media for celebrating a private New Year's Eve event at their house with Anne Igartiburu handing out the grapes . People also didn't like the fact that Calvo started a music group (called Raya Diplomática ).

"I worked at Telefónica and I bought a Super 8. No one took me seriously because I came from the lowest rung of the underground."

And it's undeniable not only the admiration that the directors of the same name profess for the La Mancha native (you only have to look at their faces when interviewing him ), but there are many similarities in the life journeys of both. As Almodóvar himself is careful to remind them: "I worked at Telefónica and I bought a Super 8, nobody took me seriously because I came from the lowest rung of the underground. My films are very representative of a country and of the people who ruled the night, because Madrid was the city to be in ." Before becoming a director, Javier Ambrossi worked as a waiter in a bar in Chueca , although Paquita Salas, The Call , or Messiah don't represent a specific (kinky) Spain, as High Heels or Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown do.

But there are a number of themes that recur in both of their works, and the documentary's own sections attest to this. The sisterhood of friends, for example, and also mothers . Because all the mothers who appear in Almodóvar's films, as he himself confesses, are his own mother. Women , in short, because if there's one thing both filmmakers can boast about, it's giving prominence to women in all their forms: from the prostitute to the nun . "I've always portrayed strong, fighting women who brought the country forward," Almodóvar himself explains. "Do you think queer creators project ourselves onto our female characters?" Javier Calvo asks in the first episode of the series. The La Mancha native agrees: "This is seen in many authors like Tennessee Williams, Lorca , Gala... behind their female characters there's a man."

"Behind the female characters of authors like Tennessee Williams, Lorca, Gala... there is clearly a man."

Perhaps this is just coffee for coffee lovers, but it's certainly interesting to observe how Almodóvar's films have changed since Pepi, Luci, Bom ... to the recent La habitación de al lado (The Room Next Door), probably his least Almodóvar-esque film, perhaps lacking in having distanced himself from what is most representative of La Mancha (the underworld). And although he has changed, there are other things that undoubtedly remain the same, even in this latest stage where death seems to occupy a good part of the director's thoughts. " My films are not costumbrista " (traditional films), he clarifies, "they have extraordinary elements that become naturalistic." The Javis admire the director's creations, claiming that in all his films he already includes previews of his future films, sometimes going decades ahead, as only geniuses do.

It's not chauvinism, it's simply a need to vindicate a director who has two Oscars, several Goyas and a Golden Lion to his name, and who, as he himself points out, is always creating: "If I had known that OnlyFans existed , I would have written about it," he says.

His personality is summed up very well by a small portion of an interview included in one of the chapters, probably rescued from the depths of El Deseo 's newspaper archives . Almodóvar is young, wears his signature disheveled hair, and the images are recorded in questionable HD quality. They ask him: "If you weren't the filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar, who would you have liked to be?" It doesn't take him long to respond defiantly with a single word: "God."