This coming May Pedro Almodovar will preside over the 70th Cannes Film Festival. And for the occasion Piper-Heidsieck, official supplier of the event, focuses on the striking women who have influenced his work.

“Chicas Almodovar,” a.k.a. the actresses who appear in Almovodar’s films.  Rebellious and fragile, volcanic divas or loving mothers, the Spanish virtuoso’s cinematic work is a temple built to honor these women of extraordinary character.  They are not only the principal subject but also the context of almost every one of his scenarios.

The list of the director’s favorite actresses begins with the letter C for Carmen Maura.  The original muse, she played lead role in his first film Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls like Mom.  In Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown she became the incarnation of the Almovodar heroine, a disappointed, flamboyant and tragic mistress.  Almodovar lavishly filmed his fetish actress while fantasizing about an “overdose of Carmen.”

Next up are Victoria Abril and Marisa Paredes.  They played the unstoppable mother and daughter duo in High Heels, with the bubbly sensuality of the former responding to the Hollywood flamboyance of the latter.  Two maliciously erotic and glamorous icons who made sparks fly in the greatest Almodovar films of the 90’s.

From Cecilia Roth to Rossy de Palma, so many actresses dwell in the director’s imagination, although one actress in particular seems to dominate, Penelope Cruz. In Volver, their third opus together, Almodovar consecrates the actress as the absolute woman.  Desirable housewife, tormented mother, and fatal goddess, she’s all of this and more.  A made to measure role for an inspiration as described by Almodovar, “Penelope is an anthology of woman… Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, Penelope represents all of these women in purest form.”  A phenomenal homage from a phenomenal filmmaker.