by Cláudio Alves

How did you get into Almodóvar? For me, it was a matter of maternal influence. Ever since catching Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown during its 1989 Portuguese release, she's been a devotee to the Spanish director. Even as her movie-going habits diminished, a new Almodóvar was always a reason to go to the theater, attend local festivals, and purchase physical media for re-watches down the road. Through those latter ones, I became acquainted with the filmmaker in my teens, learning to love his melodramas as much as my mom did. Though, of course, as a queer man, mine was a different connection to Almodóvar's cinema of complicated women and melodrama, bright colors and hot men.

To celebrate All About My Mother's 25th anniversary today, I revisited the film with the person responsible for turning young Cláudio into a fellow fan…