To celebrate the English language release of The Last Dream, Pedro Almodóvar’s genre-defying short story collection, Foyles is delighted to partner with The Garden Cinema for a special screening of Bad Education (La mala educación), followed by a Q&A with acclaimed translator Frank Wynne chaired by Adam Mars-Jones.

Including a primary version of the story behind Bad Education, the playful and inventive stories in The Last Dream offer a fascinating and wildly entertaining glimpse into the creative mind of a legendary film-maker. The translator of the English language edition of The Last Dream, Frank Wynne, joins us for a post-screening Q&A to discuss his experience translating the stories and to consider what they might tell us about Almodóvar’s artistry.

Bad Education:

Almodóvar’s powerful and passionate semi-autobiographical story was the first Spanish film to open the Cannes Film Festival. When actor Ignacio (Gael García Bernal) brings filmmaker Enrique Goded (Fele Martínez) a semi-autobiographical script chronicling their adolescence, Enrique is forced to relive his traumatic youth spent at a Catholic boarding school. In traditional Almodóvar fashion, memory is called into question, fact and fiction are blended together and the past and present interweave, resulting in a rich melodrama of moral corrosion. Bad Education showcases Almodóvar’s radical filmmaking style and signature themes of queer identities and desire at their best.

Frank Wynne is an award-winning literary translator from French and Spanish. Wynne has translated a wide variety of authors, including Michel Houellebecq, Patrick Modiano, Emiliano Monge, Alice Zeniter and Virginie Despentes. His translation of Vernon Subutex One was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2018 and his translation of Standing Heavy was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2023. He has twice been awarded both the Scott Moncrieff Prize for translation from the French and the Premio Valle Inclán for translation from Spanish.

The post-screening Q&A will be hosted by writer and critic Adam Mars-Jones. His fiction includes Box Hill, Batlava Lake, Pilcrow, Cedilla and, most recently, Caret. His writing on film regularly appears in the TLS.

Foyles will be running a bookstall at The Garden Cinema on the evening of the event with copies of The Last Dream on sale.

Tickets: £12 General Admission / £10 Foyalty & Garden Cinema members

Trigger Warning: The film includes themes of sexual abuse

Cast:
Gael García Bernal, Fele Martínez, Daniel Giménez Cacho, Lluís Homar