Released in the UK in 2021, Two of Us was one of many films whose ability to reach a cinema audience was affected by the pandemic.

In writing the script (with co-writer Malysone Bovorasmy), Italian debut director Filippo Meneghetti paid homage to two women important to him as a teenager in the 1990s, who helped him discover and develop his love of film. Meneghetti has commented that for one of these women “it was much more difficult than the story that the film depicts”. Recognising that his film could easily turn into melodrama, Meneghetti decided to use a thriller structure, to achieve the feel of “a Western confrontation, or a war scene, in a small apartment”.

The film is taken to another level by the casting of two acting powerhouses. Madeleine is played by Comedie Francaise stage star Martine Chevallier, and Nina by German actress Barbara Sukowa: star of several films directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder (e.g. Lola) and Margarethe von Trotta (e.g. Rosa Luxemburg). Meneghetti makes the most of his charismatic stars through an extensive use of close-ups: “it was important to shoot their bodies, to shoot their faces”. Meneghetti wanted to counterbalance a “society that’s obsessed with youth and beauty … I have a huge problem with that and as a filmmaker I feel the responsibility of the images I make”.

“An exquisite portrait of longing … beautifully crafted and perfectly cast” Lisa Nesselson, Screen International

“How refreshing to watch a film in which the sexuality and desire of women in their 70s is portrayed not as a novelty but simply part and parcel of their lives” Cath Clarke, Guardian