The 54th annual International Film Festival 
will kick off with a classic ensemble comedy from director Pedro Almodóvar.
The 1988 film “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” will be screened at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 8, in Plaster Hall’s Cornell Auditorium.
One woman’s lover has just jilted her by leaving a message on her answering machine, and her best friend has just found out that her lover is a Shiite terrorist. Into that mix is added a third woman, who was just released from a 20-year stay in a mental institution, to create a film The New York Times called “a door-slamming farce in the grand tradition.” The ensemble cast features a young Antonio Banderas.
The film is rated R. Presented by the Missouri Southern Film Society and the Institute of International Studies, admission is free and open to the public.