Mona Fastvold & Brady Corbet’s ‘Ann Lee’ to Premiere at Venice

Here’s come an interesting new project from the same team that brought us “The Brutalist.”

Amanda Seyfried, Thomasin McKenzie, Lewis Pullman, Christopher Abbott, Tim Blake Nelson and Stacy Martin star in “Ann Lee,” a film developed by ‘Brutalist’ team Mona Fastvold and Brady Corbet. Did I mention it’s a musical? Shooting on this one wrapped in December.

THR is confirming a “planned” Venice Film Festival premiere for “Ann Lee. Here’s Seyfreid describing the film as “really crazy”

Brady just texted me that he saw the first cut. He loves it, and he’s not biased about his own work. He’s not one to fucking blow smoke. Brady and Mona are dear friends of mine. They’ve scraped by making incredible indie movies. This is what they’re good at. And I got to play a famous cult leader in a musical set in the 1770s!

The film, set in 18th century England, and “inspired” by real events, is “an epic fable” about religious leader Ann Lee, the founding leader of the Shaker Movement, and proclaimed by her followers as the “female Christ.” Seyfried is said to be playing the lead role here, and the ensemble cast backing her is mightily impressive.

Unlike “The Brutalist,” which was co-written by Corbet/Fastvold, directing duties have been flipped, and Fastvold is at the helm of “Ann Lee” — Corbet co-wrote and co-produced the film with her.

There’s no indication the film was shot in VistaVision, and Lol Crawley isn’t the cinematographer this time around. However, the score is by Daniel Blumberg, who just won the Oscar for “The Brutalist.”

The last film Fastvold directed was 2020’s “The World to Come,” starring Vanessa Kirby and Katherine Waterston, which premiered to much acclaim at the Venice Film Festival. This will be Fastvold’s third directorial effort after ‘World to Come’ and “The Sleepwalker.”

Fastvold has co-written all three of Corbet’s films (“The Childhood of a Leader,” “Vox Lux,” “The Brutalist”). No surprise then that they’ve also been dating for over 10 years.