Sofia Coppola’s ‘Priscilla’ Gets Seven-Minute Standing Ovation At The Venice Film festival

With an emotional and feminine touch, Priscilla is already the talk of the town. The cast and Priscilla Presley herself held back tears as the standing ovation echoed in the famous Venice film festival’s theater.

Sofia Coppola’s latest project, a biopic of Priscilla’s relationship with Elvis, starring Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi, had its world premiere on Monday night, and the audience was abuzz. SAGAFTRA and the film’s producers made quick moves to help make this moment happen. Thanks to an interim agreement arranged in days prior to the festival, alongside director Coppola, stars Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi were able to attend the premiere alongside Priscilla Presley. The biopic details her relationship with Elvis, whom she met as a 14-year-old.

Earlier in the day at the film’s press conference, Presley admitted that watching the movie had been hard. “It’s very difficult to watch a film about you and about your life and about your love,” she said. “But Sofia did an amazing job. She did her homework, and I really put everything out for her that I could.”

Presley also spoke candidly about her time with Elvis and had to stop several times to wipe away tears. She went on to say, “Elvis would pour his heart out to me. His hopes, his fears, his loss of his mother, and I was the person who really sat there to listen and to comfort him. That was really our connection. Even though I was 14, I was older in life than in years,” she said. “And that was the attraction. People think, ‘Oh, it was sex, it was this.’ Not at all. I never had sex with him. He was very kind, very soft, very loving. But he also respected the fact I was only 14 years old. We were more in mind and thought, and that was our relationship.”

Written and directed by Sofia Coppola, Priscilla is based on the 1985 memoir Elvis and Me, written by Presley and Sandra Harmon.