With contributions by Hermann Kappelhoff, Ilka Brombach, Hye-Jeung Chung, Daniel Illger, Sarah-Mai Dang, Anja Streiter Pedro Amodóvar is considered to be one of the most significant directors of our time. It has been long since he transformed from the »enfant terrible« of the Spanish underground to an internationally celebrated representative of arthouse cinema. There were hardly any cinema nations where his films have not been released, hardly any important film award he hasn’t won – all the way to his Oscar for »TODO SOBRE MI MADRE« (1999). In spite of his reputation, Almodóvar remains controversial. Some have praised films like »¡Átame!« (1990) in the name of radical gender politics as liberating strikes against the ruling morality, while others scolded them for their ostentatious artificiality and self-referentiality. On the one hand, Almodóvar’s films seem to fulfill expectations one poses to a shrill and colorful postmodern aesthetic, while on the other hand, they have a dark, abysmal side to them, as shown by the examples of »Kika« (1993) and »La mala educación« (2004). The confrontation with sexual dependency and abuse cannot be overlooked in some of his films. This magazine’s contributions relate to these complexes, particularly the political dimension of Pedro Amodóvar’s work.