The Spanish film-maker on the raw, real life experiences behind his first collection of short stories – and why his mother is his inspiration

One day when he was nine years old and living in a small Extremaduran town of makeshift adobe houses, steep slate streets and dusty, meagre horizons, Pedro Almodóvar caught his mother out in a lie.

The family had recently moved south from La Mancha and Francisca Caballero was making ends meet by reading and writing letters for her illiterate neighbours. As he read over his mother’s shoulder, Almodóvar realised the words on the page did not correspond to the words on her lips.