"A while ago, I was at a restaurant with my mother, and she fancied the waiter's hands. She said to me, ''I worry that I will never be touched again, except by the undertaker.'' I kept thinking about that, how, as you get older, age and time become more and more interesting. The idea for ''The Mother'' involves sex of a scandalous nature, and I realized that would be a good starting point. But it was the undressing of her dignity that moved me."

Hanif Kureishi, film maker