Danish master Bille August has debuted his latest feature, Me, You, at the Rome Film Festival this week, presenting the film to audiences at one of the major stops on the European festival calendar.

The film is an adaptation of a novel by Erri De Luca, the celebrated Italian author known for prose that is concise and evocative. August describes the narrative as a story centered on purity and vulnerability — an intimate human drama rather than spectacle, and a meeting of Danish filmmaking sensibility with Italian storytelling.

August remains one of the most decorated directors in world cinema: he is one of the few filmmakers to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes twice, for Pelle the Conqueror and The Best Intentions, and Pelle also won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. A late-career turn toward a delicate literary adaptation underlines the range of a director who has worked at the highest level of international cinema for four decades.

The Rome screening marks the moment Me, You enters the public sphere, as the production begins its life with audiences and the wider festival circuit.