Priscilla Presley Attends 'Priscilla' Venice Premiere with Cailee Spaeny, Sofia Coppola and Jacob Elordi

Priscilla Presley's memoir is the basis for director Sofia Coppola's new film

Priscilla Presley posed with the team who brought her love story to life in Priscilla.

The ex-wife of the late Elvis Presley appeared at the 80th Venice International Film Festival on Monday.

She walked the red carpet alongside Priscilla director Sofia Coppola and actors Jacob Elordi and Cailee Spaeny. (The A24 film was granted a SAG-AFTRA Interim Agreement waiver amid the strike since it was filmed in Canada with a non-AMPTP studio.)

Based on Presley's 1985 memoir Elvis and Me, Coppola's new movie, which stars Elordi, 26, and Spaeny, 25, as Elvis and Priscilla, respectively, tells their story from her perspective.

At a press conference for the film Monday, Priscilla, 78, called Elvis "the love of my life" even as she discussed her decision to divorce the icon in 1972.

“It’s very difficult to sit and watch a film about you and about your life and about your love," she told reporters. "I think Sofia did an amazing job, she did her homework. We spoke a couple of times and I really put everything out for her that I could.” 

Related: Sofia Coppola's 'Priscilla' Trailer: See Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi Fall in Love as the Presleys

Priscilla did not initially appear at the podium alongside Coppola, Spaeny and Elordi at the press conference, but she took the microphone when asked what aspects of the film moved her most.

"It was the lifestyle that was so difficult for me, and I think any woman can relate to that. But it didn’t mar our relationship. We still remained very close," Priscilla recalled of how she and Elvis, who died at 42 in 1977, handled their relationship post-divorce.

"And of course, we had our daughter, and I made sure that he saw her all the time. It was like we never left each other," she added.

Elsewhere in the press conference, Coppola, 52, said she could put herself in Priscilla's shoes when it came to meeting Elvis as a teenager. "I can go back to being that age and remember having a crush on an older guy and a rockstar,” she told reporters. “I just imagined myself in her point of view.”

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

The director said she was interested in Priscilla's story in terms of "opening up about how she found herself and [how she] then emerged to find her own identity."

"That really struck me," Coppola added. "And also the [expectations] of women of that generation to be completely fulfilled with having a successful husband, a beautiful home and a child. If they wanted some expression outside of that it was a struggle and it wasn’t expected.”

A synopsis for the film published on the Venice Film Festival official website reads, "Through Priscilla’s eyes, Sofia Coppola tells the unseen side of a great American myth in Elvis and Priscilla's long courtship and turbulent marriage, from a German army base to his dream-world estate at Graceland, in this deeply felt and ravishingly detailed portrait of love, fantasy and fame."

Related: Austin Butler Wishes Fellow Elvis Actor Jacob Elordi 'All the Best' on Golden Globes 2023 Red Carpet

Priscilla comes one year after director Baz Luhrmann's 2022 movie Elvis, which starred Austin Butler as the musician and Olivia DeJonge as Priscilla in a story that also focused on Tom Hanks as Elvis's manager Col. Tom Parker.

The Venice Film Festival marked Presley's second red carpet appearance since her daughter Lisa Marie Presley's death in January. Prior to attending the Venice Film Festival, in early March Priscilla stepped out for the Los Angeles premiere of Netflix's new animated series Agent Elvis.

Priscilla is in theaters Oct. 27.

For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on People.