I'm an artist…and I'm part of every decision in a movie. This is not how they work in Hollywood. There, the director is part of the crew, not the mai… - Pedro Almodóvar

I rely on it, it’s an addiction, the need to tell stories. If anything, my relationship with film has become more tense, more of a problem, because there is always that question: when will my time be up? Will this be the last film I make?...Perhaps this is the reason I haven’t developed any other facets of my life. Quite the opposite, I think I’ve cut back. So I’ve now reached the point where film is the only thing that makes me feel whole. Cinema is the only thing I have. It’s finished up being both the end and the means for me.

Whenever I've shot my previous films, I've felt phantoms of my own cinema past and personal past hovering over me. They accompanied me through those films. But this time I felt completely on my own. For the first time this film did not go hand-in-hand with my memories. The tone is different as well. It's very austere.

In fact I was never the son my parents wanted. I mean, I think that they really loved me. But it’s something I realised from a very young age.