EXCLUSIVE: Filippo Meneghetti’s Golden Globe nominated Two Of Us goes out in the U.S. today via Magnolia Pictures. As a special treat for the virtual cinema release, star Barbara Sukowa was interviewed by Golden Globe winner and Oscar nominee Isabelle Huppert in a discussion that will play after every virtual cinema screening. Check out an exclusive clip above.
Written and directed by first-time filmmaker Menghetti, Two Of Us is also the French submission to the International Feature Oscar race. It stars Sukowa and Martine Chevallier who play a pair of retired women, Nina (Sukowa) and Madeline (Chevallier), who have secretly been in love for decades. Everybody, including Madeline’s family, thinks they are simply neighbors, sharing the top floor of their building. They come and go between their two apartments, enjoying the affection and pleasures of daily life together, until an unforeseen event turns their relationship upside down and leads Madeline’s daughter (Léa Drucker) to gradually unravel the truth between them.
In her 30-minute conversation with Huppert, Sukowa, winner of the Cannes Film Festival’s Best Actress prize for Rosa Luxemburg, talks about her hopes that the film’s portrayal of a deep, true love will help open peoples’ minds.
Two Of Us originally premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2019 and was released in France just before the first Covid lockdown. Earlier this week, it landed a Best Foreign Language Film Globe nomination. The film took six years to get made, and faced some reticence from financiers because of the age of the leads. But Meneghetti held fast. Sukowa notes in the clip above that she was encouraged that young people have responded well to the movie.
Voting for the International Feature Film Oscar shortlist closes today with the expanded roster of 15 titles to be unveiled next week.