Searchlight has premiered the trailer for the historical drama musical film “The Testament of Ann Lee,” which will be presented in 70mm and opens in select cinemas on Christmas Day.
Norwegian filmmaker and actress Mona Fastvold (“The World to Come”) directs the film and co-wrote it with her partner and fellow filmmaker Brady Corbet.
Fastvold and Corbet co-wrote the scripts for Corbet’s films “The Brutalist,” “The Childhood of a Leader,” and “Vox Lux”, and have brought some talent from those films with them, including choreographer Celia Rowlson-Hall and Oscar-winning composer Daniel Blumberg.
‘Testament’ is based on the extraordinary true legend of Ann Lee, founder of the devotional sect known as the Shakers.
Oscar nominee Amanda Seyfried stars as the Shaker’s leader who preached gender and social equality and was revered by her followers.
The film aims to “capture the ecstasy and agony of her quest to build a utopia”. It does this by taking more than a dozen traditional Shaker hymns and reimagining them as major singing & dancing numbers.
Thomasin Mckenzie, Lewis Pullman, Tim Blake Nelson, Christopher Abbott, Stacy Martin, Matthew Beard, Scott Handy, Viola Prettejohn, Jamie Bogyo and David Cale co-star.
