Joanna Hogg was extremely nervous about showing her mother her latest film, “The Eternal Daughter.”

The writer-director of “The Souvenir” films had, again, mined her own life for material and inspiration. Here she wanted to make something about a woman about her age, in her 60s, and her mother on a trip together. It would be a ghost story, in a way, with conversations about memory, regret, life and happiness.

But she never got the chance to talk it over with her mother, who died while Hogg was editing the film. And she’s feeling a bit fragile a few hours before its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival, sitting beside her star and lifelong friend Tilda Swinton, who plays both the mother, Rosalind, and the daughter, Julie.

Hogg is not the only one feeling this way, either. This is the kind of film that gets under your skin. And no one is quite sure if they’ll make it out of the interview with dry eyes (spoiler: they don’t).

“Maybe we’ll all just have a cry together,” Hogg said.

“I have tissues!” Swinton responded, handing one to Hogg and one to this reporter.

“She was so looking forward to seeing this film. She loves ghost stories — loved ghost stories,” Hogg said. “I was never brave enough to tell her what the film was about. But she probably knew because she was very intuitive.”