Attending a family shivah as a boy inspired Mike Leigh to become a film-maker. The acclaimed director said that he suddenly realised it would make a great film - "it was already a tragi-comic scene, you see."

Mr Leigh made the revelation in an interview with presenter Alan Yentob for BBC1's Imagine programme, to be broadcast on Tuesday.

He talks candidly about growing up in a Jewish home in Salford, and the "screaming matches" with his father, Abe, who opposed his career choice.

"What he was really doing, of course, was giving me a lifetime's ammunition for my film-making," the director said.