Every director dreams of being at the helm of a feature film and seeing their name up on the big screen and Walthamstow’s Peter Domankiewicz is no exception.

And while you may not have heard of his movie Tea & Sangria yet, take a trip to the Empire in Walthamstow over the next week and you will see it billed alongside the massive new blockbuster Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Set entirely in Madrid, the comedy highlights the hilarious differences between the English and Spanish cultures.

But it was a long and winding road that led Peter to finally fulfil his dream, via singing and songwriting, playing in a band, being a radio presenter, doing experimental film, commercial video and award-winning independent theatre.

Little did he know that it would be by following his heart, and his then girlfriend, to Spain that he would set himself on the path to writing, producing, directing and starring in his first full-length film.

“I was living in Bristol and met a Spanish woman who was passing through and one thing led to another, and six months later I was moving to Madrid,“ recalls Peter of his 2004 journey.

“My first impressions were that it was a crazy place with friendly people, but there is no minding your Ps and Qs, they just say what they are thinking in quite a brutal way, which is quite shocking.

“I remember coming home one day and my girlfriend was having this shouting row with a neighbour up the staircase and I crept passed. The next day I came home and the same neighbour was sitting in the lounge laughing and they were having a coffee together.“ Sadly six months later the relationship was over, but Peter stayed and continued his struggle to find his big break in the industry.

“This was a script I wrote because lots of people had said ’all these absurd things have happened to you, you should really write about it’. I was sceptical, but one day while riding the Metro to work I had this very clear image of a film that would begin with a relationship and you would think it was about a couple and then you realise it is about something completely different seven minutes in.“

The film sees David, a love-struck Englishman, arrive in Madrid to live with his Spanish girlfriend Marisa only to find the relationship soon turn sour and himself stranded in a foreign city. Instead of quietly escaping back home, he decides to immerse himself in Latin life.

Peter touted the script to Spain’s top producers in 2007 but nobody went for it, so he decided to make it himself on shoestring budget by ransacking his savings and working with new acting talent and a small, fresh-faced crew.

“I wanted to make people feel that they were really living in Madrid in the thick of it.“ But juggling the stress of his dual roles almost pushed him to a nervous breakdown and the unorthodox working methods hand-held shooting on a digital SLR camera, the minimum of takes, moving between locations by Metro  saw him lose every important member of the crew within the first few weeks.

“It was the most horrendous shooting period I’ve ever had,“ recalls Peter, admitting he almost gave up.

“The lowest moment came sitting outside an Indian restaurant on Lavapiés Street at 1am after a particularly tough day’s filming. I can remember just sitting there weeping and eating Indian food with people walking by paying no attention to me.“

Gradually, though, with the help of actress Ángela Boix, who plays his on-off girlfriend Marisa in the film, and Colombian production manager Tatiana Arboleda, he assembled the people he needed to move forward.

And luck finally took his side when respected editor Nacho Ruiz Capillas signed up to work on the project for free.

Peter is now extremely proud of the finished film, which features many true moments such as the difficulties of explaining vegetarianism to a Spaniard; the excessive politeness and apologising of British speech and even contrasting attitudes to breaking wind and sees the characters use both languages, as they would in real life, with the subtitles integrated into the heart of the frame.

“You’ve got English people talking bad Spanish, Spanish people talking bad English, just a whole mix of stuff going on all the time, because that to me was life in Spain,“ says Peter, who moved back to the UK in 2012.

He chose to live in Walthamstow on a whim and says: “I looked at a map and thought it looked good so went to an estate agents and while there saw a leaflet for the arts trail. I thought anywhere that had that was my kind of place.“

A week later he had an offer accepted on a property and his choice certainly came up trumps when, after battling to get Tea & Sangria shown in cinemas in England or Spain, the local Empire agreed to show it for an entire week and to let Peter do a Q&A after the screening on April 25.

“Every time I walk past and see the poster I can’t quite believe it,“ says Peter. “The manager, Adam Root, has been so supportive.

“I worked out that for the money of my film you would get about two and a half seconds of Avengers:Age of Ultron. So the fact they are showing alongside each other is extraordinary.“

Tea & Sangria is showing at the Empire Cinema, High Street, Walthamstow, E17 7FD, April 24 to 30. Details: teaandsangriamovie.com, empirecinemas.co.uk