Mona Fastvold’s The Testament of Ann Lee will premiere in the main competition at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival on 27 August, delivering a 70 mm, 137‑minute historical musical that dramatizes the life of Shaker founder Mother Ann Lee with Amanda Seyfried in the title role. Seyfried leads an ensemble that also features Thomasin McKenzie, Lewis Pullman, Christopher Abbott, Tim Blake Nelson and Stacy Martin, all captured by cinematographer William Rexer on location in Hungary last winter.
Fastvold co‑wrote the screenplay with longtime collaborator Brady Corbet, whose partnership extends from financing through their New York‑based banner Kaplan Morrison and a raft of European co‑producers, including Sweden’s Film i Väst and Hungary’s Proton Cinema. Production wrapped in December 2024 under the working title The Woman Clothed by the Sun.
Set in the 1770s, the film charts Lee’s controversial migration from industrial Manchester to upstate New York, where her ecstatic song‑and‑dance worship ignited one of America’s earliest utopian movements. Fastvold blends period detail with what Seyfried has called “a really crazy” staging of religious fervour, employing live‑recorded choral numbers composed by Daniel Blumberg and choreographed to evoke the Shakers’ trademark whirling trances.
Venice programmers highlight the project’s “radical formal ambition,” noting it is one of only two features in the lineup projected entirely on 70 mm celluloid, alongside Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein. The festival berth will be followed by a North‑American bow at Toronto in September, where the picture screens with a road‑show overture and intermission.
Industry observers view Ann Lee as a potential awards breakout: Seyfried’s turn as a self‑proclaimed female Christ reunites her with the musical form for the first time since Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again and positions Fastvold for her highest‑profile release after The World to Come.
International sales are underway via CAA Media Finance, which is fielding offers on a limited‑platform U.S. rollout timed for the holiday corridor. With Venice publicity photos already trending across social platforms, the Shaker hymn “Simple Gifts” may soon echo far beyond the Lido.
