Rosalía is having an Almodovar moment…
The 24-year-old Spanish singer, who released her new single “Piensa en tu Mirá” earlier this week, is busy filming her debut acting role in the new movie from director Pedro Almodovar.
Rosalía will appear alongside Penelope Cruz in Almodovar’s Dolor y Gloria, which features Antonio Banderas in a leading role.
Rosalia, who is experiencing growing fame as the voice of a new generation, is also expected to be the cornerstone of the movie’s soundtrack as well.
Almodovar is best known for his strong female characters, but his appreciation for female voices surpasses that of any contemporary director. In the past, he’s honored Chavela Vargas and La Lupe through his movies, and brought Buika, Estrella Morente and Luz Casals to new audiences. Now it’s Rosalía’s turn.
“When I was little I watched Pedro’s movies with my mother and my sister and the women featured in them seemed from another world and at the same time so familiar,” Rosalía wrote on an Instagram post accompanied by photos of her first day of shooting. “My life has always been about singing, playing, dancing, acting and I can truthfully say that I dreamed about doing something like this since I was a little girl.”
Almodovar burst onto the international scene in the 1980s, as Spain emerged from a cultural slumber of a 40-year dictatorship, with films that declared the emergence of a new movement from the underground while caricaturing the constricts of traditional Spanish society.
The videos for Rosalía’s “Piensa en tu Mirá” and her previous single “Malamente” were created by Canada, a Barcelona production company known for its bold work. They also embrace typical Spanish iconography, but from a 21st century perspective, contrasting flamenco and bullfighting imagery with cars, motorcycles, guns and other images that are constants in the visual language of urban music.
Rosalía’s increasing presence in Spain’s audiovisual scene also extends to television: she sings the theme song of the second season of Paquita Salas, which caught on as a web series and premiered this summer on Netflix. The show, described as a “tragicomedy” by Brays Efe — who plays the brazen actors’ agent Paquita — is a direct heir to the irreverent, and distinctly Spanish, legacy of Almodovar.
