Film Spotlight

‘Broken Embraces’ is the present-day story of blind Spanish filmmaker Harry Caine (Lluís Homar) who revisits a tragic episode in his past when a stranger turns up on his doorstep in Madrid wanting to collaborate with him on a new film. We head back to 1992 and learn how a young woman, a secretary and sometime call-girl called Lena (Penélope Cruz), came to move in with her overbearing millionaire boss, Ernesto Martel.

Two years later, it's 1994 and Lena is starring in a film – 'Girls and Suitcases' – financed by Martel and directed by Caine, who is then known as Mateo Blanco and is not yet blind. Fuelled by jealousy, Lena’s violent older husband orders his son to video his wife’s every move while she is filming, resulting in hours and hours of footage which he watches every night with a lip-reader at his side to interpret the dialogue. Will Lena's fledgling love affair survive this collision with wealth, power and anger?

Penélope Cruz, star of 'Broken Embraces', tells Dave Calhoun about sneaking on to set aged 14 to spy on the director at work, being a bad actress and learning what it is to be 'raunchy' Read more ►