VENICE LIDO, Italy – Pedro Almodóvar has long been Spain’s reigning auteur with international hits going back to the 1980s. Now, as he nears 75, he is making his English language feature debut with the New York-set “The Room Next Door.”

As he prepared for his film’s world premiere at the Venice Film Festival Monday, Almodóvar noted that an English film was all a matter of needing, he said, “To have the right vehicle to do it.”

That turned out to be “What Are You Going Through” by the award-winning American author Sigrid Nunez, where a woman helps a terminally ill friend retreat to the countryside where she plans to end her life with an illegal euthanasia pill.

The film stars Scotland’s Tilda Swinton as the dying Martha and Julianne Moore as her friend Ingrid.

“I was very hooked with one chapter of the novella when Julianne goes to the hospital and sees her friend. These two characters,” Almodóvar said, speaking in English and Spanish, “they are New York women and belong to a generation I know in the middle ‘80s.

“I know,” he said smiling, “how to treat those two ladies of that period!…  The language is very awkward  but it was not a problem and they understood exactly the tone I wanted: To be more austere. Emotional but not melodramatic at all.”

What was immediately apparent was the enthusiasm and reverence — these “two redheads” as Moore dubbed themselves – have for the filmmaker.

“I think of this film as a love story between Ingrid and Martha,” Swinton, 63, said.  “And when I say love that is essential, friendship is the heart of all love.”

“What I think is so compelling is not only do we have a mother-daughter story which we see in films but rarely do we see a film about female friendship – and a friendship with women that are older,” Moore, also 63, added. “I don’t know another filmmaker who would do this than Pedro. It was so unusual. He portrays this relationship as so profound — and it is.”

Swinton first recognized Almodóvar as a kindred spirit back in the ‘80s when she was in London and he Madrid.

“I discovered Pedro’s world working in a similar milieu in London. Pedro was right in the center and the face of huge culture change and cultural movement and we admired it. Since then I have worshipped in his high church. It never occurred that I would be in it.

“That is really a trip, an extraordinary thing. To be his disciple is inspiring.”

Sony Pictures Classics opens “The Room Next Door” in theaters in December.