Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton play estranged friends who rekindle their friendship after the latter falls ill in the teaser of Pedro Almodóvar’s first English film The Room Next Door, dropped by the makers on Tuesday.

Set to a dramatic violin score, the one-minute-eight-second-long teaser shows Moore’s Ingrid and Swinton’s Martha living together in a house nestled in the laps of nature, rekindling a friendship from decades ago when they were both journalists.

As Moore’s character supports Swinton through a particularly bleak phase of her life, she becomes entangled in the cycle of treatments and challenges that the latter faces.

In the video, Swinton is seen lying on a hospital bed with Moore by her side. The two women, once inseparable friends in their youth, navigate their new lifestyle together even as Swinton’s character seems to be devoid of feelings after undergoing a prolonged medical treatment.

“Ingrid (Julianne Moore) and Martha (Tilda Swinton) were close friends in their youth, when they worked together at the same magazine. Ingrid went on to become an autofiction novelist while Martha became a war reporter, and they were separated by the circumstances of life. After years of being out of touch, they meet again in an extreme but strangely sweet situation,” reads the official synopsis of the film shared by Sony Pictures Classics.

The Room Next Door is set to premiere at Venice Film Festival on September 2. It is a follow-up to Almodóvar’s 2021 movie Parallel Mothers, for which Penelope Cruz bagged the best actress award at Venice Film Festival.

The Pedro Almodóvar directorial is also going to be screened at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. “The Room Next Door might be renowned Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar’s first English-language feature, but he has left none of his signature hallmarks behind. The complex narratives filled with heartbreaking choices, visuals saturated with colour, and the precise rendering of women’s inner lives are very much intact,” reads a snippet on the film festival’s official website.

Following its Venice Film Festival premiere, The Room Next Door is expected to hit theatres later this year.