'Estrella is a seamstress, like my mother. Sewing was part of my childhood since I grew up surrounded by fabric, listening to the endless rattle of the sewing machine and the sharp cut of the scissors. Thus, in a very natural way, my mother’s trade was crucial when we created the character interpreted by Lola Dueñas. The sewing machine appearing in the movie is actually her own and she personally trained Lola during the process of preparing Estrella’s character.

I asked my mother to teach Lola. Her job involves artisanal skills, almost extinct, that is carried out in the home.. For a couple of months Lola visited my mother’s room every day and it was there where she learnt to sew as if she’d done it all her life. They spent so many hours working together that a great deal of the film costumes and the atrezzo were actually sewn there. Sometimes I’d go in order to share the experience or I became their model while they took my measurements or tried clothes on me. Sometimes my mother did it while Lola practiced and I watched them or recorded them with my cell phone.

There were times when I spied on them quietly and I enjoyed the very special relationship growing between them and that sewing machine. That wasn’t a mere course about sewing but a serious process of conveying a vocation linked to the unconditional love of a mother. Lola did her best to sew just as my mother did and my mother tried hard to teach her so that her daughter could make the film she had envisioned. 

I guess there are many ways to say I love you and everyone does it in their own way, whether it be giving shape to a piece of fabric or making a film.’