TWO UGLY PEOPLE
Mystery, Romance
Written & Directed by
Peter Skinner - Lost Boy (2020), Stranger (2017)
Produced by
Julia Gardell, Orla Doyle, Peter Skinner & Dinusha Ratnaweera
Starring
Michael Sheasby - The Nightingale (2018), Hacksaw Ridge (2016), Home and Away (2012)
Cato Ayyar - Sirens (2022)
Ben Oxenbould - Heartbreak High (2022), True Colours (2022), Mystery Road (2018)
Di Adams - The Killings at Parrish Station (2026), The People vs Robodebt (2025)
Synopsis
Two strangers meet by chance in a highway-side motel but as their stay goes on, we begin to wonder if their meeting was by chance at all.
Year of Release
2025
Run Time
104m
Country of Origin
Australia
Tag Line
It could be love, it could be love.
Genre
Romance, Mystery
Classification
M
Consumer Advice
Coarse Language
Awards and Festivals
Official Selection - CinefestOz 2025
Official Selection - Santa Barbara International Film Festival 2026
Official Selection - Flickers Rhode Island Film Festival 2026
Official Selection - Green Point Film Festival (Honourable Mention Award) 2026
Director’s Statement
Is it possible to live in a fantasy?
Two Ugly People is a romance thriller that explores the fantasies that we attempt to live in real life that disable us from being able to understand who we really are.
Through the central love story of the film, our two protagonists fight to keep their pre-planned, relived fantasy alive in order to escape from the realities of their past. But through each other, their online personas and the encroaching outside world, they are forced to confront the trauma of their shared history, and the future of their relationship.
I’m fascinated by the difference between the parts of our identities we share with the world, and the parts we suppress into the shadows, only to be shared with certain individuals, if any. Whilst we tend to think of these identities as very separate, it is in fact the shadows and their fantasies that reveal the closest version of our truest self. It is in indulging in and exploring these, that we are better able to understand what it is we lack or need.
Set in the liminal, isolated, and at times surreal world of a highway motel, Two Ugly People submerges its audience in its characters’ attempts to live in a dream; Its thrills, its loneliness, and its consequences. For in the words of Slavoj Zizek, A fantasy realised, is a nightmare.
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