AS THE result of a car accident 14 years ago, film director Mateo Blanco – who also wrote short stories and film scripts under the pseudonym Harry Caine – lost his sight and the love of his life. Distraught, he took on the Harry Caine persona full time –

AS THE result of a car accident 14 years ago, film director Mateo Blanco - who also wrote short stories and film scripts under the pseudonym Harry Caine - lost his sight and the love of his life.

Distraught, he took on the Harry Caine persona full time - if he could not direct movies anymore, he preferred the thought that Mateo Blanco died in the crash along with Lena.

Now Harry makes a living writing scripts, helped by his faithful production manager Judit and her son, Diego, who is his secretary, typist and guide.

Over the years, Harry has developed his other senses to make up for being blind and he is happy that the world has forgotten Mateo Blanco.

One night, Diego has an accident and Harry must look after him. In the long nights of sitting up with the boy, he tells him the story of his past - a story of fatality, jealousy and betrayal.

Penelope Cruz and Spain's most famous director Pedro Almodovar team up again in BROKEN EMBRACES (15), after their success with Volver.

Lluis Homar is Harry.

Almodovar says: "Most of the female roles I've written in my life are a mixture of my mother and her neighbours in La Mancha, mixed with Holly Golightly, from Breakfast at Tiffany's, the Giulietta Masina of La strada and the Shirley MacLaine of Some Came Running and The Apartment.

"All those women are inside Pen�lope, so are their opposites, the grandes dames of American film noir, Gene Tierney, Linda Darnell, Constance Bennett.

"Penelope can be any of them, and also Sofia Loren, Magnani and Claudia Cardinale and all the heroines of Italian neo-realism, a style that has always been an inspiration to me.