Mona Fastvold’s “The Testament of Ann Lee” is still seeking distribution ahead of its Venice Film Festival premiere, but it already signals Fastvold’s daring as a director—not to mention Amanda Seyfried’s willingness to risk everything as an actress.
Suffice it to say, this will not be your typical historical biopic—or musical—and a splashy new Vanity Fair “first look” proves just that. The new stills released can be seem below this piece.
The 137-minute film, shot in 34 days on 70mm film with a budget under $10M, exemplifies audacious technical ambition. Fastvold staged storms, sea-bound ships, and large-scale set pieces, channeling a sense of epic scale while remaining resourceful. No surprise her boyfriend and creative partner, Brady Corbet—co-writer on ‘Ann Lee’—also shot “The Brutalist” for under $10M on 70mm film.
Set in 18th-century England and loosely inspired by real events, the film has been described as “an epic fable” centered on the life of a controversial religious figure who founded the Shaker movement and was proclaimed by her followers to be the “female Christ.”
The titular Ann Lee gave birth to four children—and lost all of them in infancy—before organizing one of the most unusual religious movements in history: a celibate, female-led utopia defined by song and dance.
Seyfried plays the titular role, supported by an ensemble that reads like a who’s who of rising and respected indie talent, including Thomasin McKenzie, Lewis Pullman, Christopher Abbott, Tim Blake Nelson, and Stacy Martin.
I don’t know if this will turn out to be a great film, but the sheer boldness of its ambition, and Fastvold’s refusal to comply with conventional notions of what a movie should look and feel like, has me completely intrigued.
This marks Fastvold’s third directorial feature, following 2020’s “The World to Come,” and 2014’s “The Sleepwalker.” She’s co-written all three of Corbet’s films — “The Childhood of a Leader,” “Vox Lux,” and “The Brutalist.” The two have been dating for over a decade and continue to function as one of the more artistically ambitious partnerships in contemporary indie cinema.
