Shot in an abandoned villa in Rome near the Spanish Steps.
After several years making big sweeping epics like Le dernier empereur (1987), Un thé au Sahara (1990) and Little Buddha (1993), this was a deliberate effort on the part of Bernardo Bertolucci to make a "piece of chamber music for the cinema".
Being such a small-scale effort, Bernardo Bertolucci was able to cover off roughly 20-25 scenes every day, four times more than he would be able to cover on a bigger budget film.
The original short story is set in London not Rome, the woman hails from Latin America not Africa and the Kinsky character is much older.