Sony Pictures Classics Sets Release Dates For Pedro Almodóvar’s ‘The Room Next Door,’ Walter Salles’ ‘I’m Still Here’

Sony Pictures Classics on Wednesday announced release dates for two of its acclaimed festival titles, The Room Next Door and I’m Still Here, both of which premiered in Venice.

Written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar, who has long been in business with the studio, The Room Next Door will be released in NY and L.A. theaters on December 20 and expand to select cities on January 10 before opening nationwide on January 17.

Directed by Walter Salles from a script by Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega, I’m Still Here releases in New York and Los Angeles on January 17 with a one-week awards-qualifying run before expanding to theaters nationwide on February 14.

Taking home the top prize of the Golden Lion at this year’s Venice Film Festival, The Room Next Door, starring Julianne Moore, Tilda Swinton, and John Turturro, marks Almodóvar’s first English-language feature. The film follows Ingrid (Moore) and Martha (Swinton), who were close friends in their youth, when they worked together at the same magazine. Ingrid went on to become an autofiction novelist while Martha became a war reporter, and they were separated by the circumstances of life. After years of being out of touch, they meet again in an extreme but strangely sweet situation.

Selected as Brazil’s official entry for Best International Feature at the 97th Academy Awards, I’m Still Here is an adaptation of the biographical book from Marcelo Rubens Paiva, which landed the award for Best Screenplay in Venice. Telling a true story that helps reconstruct an important part of Brazil’s hidden history, the film takes place in 1971 Brazil, as the country faces the tightening grip of a military dictatorship. Eunice Paiva (Fernanda Montenegro), a mother of five children, is forced to reinvent herself after her family suffers a violent and arbitrary act by the government. The film reunites Sony Pictures Classics with Salles, 26 years after their collaboration on his drama Central Station.

Sony Pictures Classics is coming off of the release of another awards contender, The Outrun, Nora Fingscheidt’s adaptation of the memoir from Amy Liptrot, which stars Saoirse Ronan as an alcoholic coming to terms with her troubled past. That film released in theaters on October 4.