WITH “Julieta,” which premieres at the Cannes Film Festival on Tuesday, director Pedro Almodovar returns to the “feminine universe” in trademark colorful fashion.

    The film, starring Emma Suarez as the older woman and Adriana Ugarte as her younger self, shows a mother drifting into depression after her daughter disappears. Her husband Xoan, played by Daniel Grao, has died several years beforehand.

    “I think I have come back to a place — a place that I will never leave all together which is the universe of women — the feminine universe,” Almodovar, who won the best director award in Cannes for “All About my Mother” in 1999, said.

    He has not made a woman-focussed film since “Volver” 10 years ago, and in “Julieta” he also explores another favorite theme — mothers.

    “I have done lots of movies about mothers but I believe this mother ... if you compare her with other mothers, she’s the most vulnerable mother,” he told a news conference Tuesday.

    “If we compare her to all other mothers in my films who are all powerful women with an ability to struggle which seems above human — but I turned Julieta her into the victim of losses.”

    Questioned about his and his brother’s name being cited in the Panama Papers as having ties with an offshore company in the 1990s, he said, “If the Panama papers were a film ... we wouldn’t even be extras in that film.” (SD-Agencies)