{"id":192180,"date":"2025-09-01T19:08:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-01T19:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/192180\/"},"modified":"2025-09-01T19:08:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T19:08:09","slug":"amanda-seyfried-starrer-testament-of-ann-lee-premieres-in-venice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/192180\/","title":{"rendered":"Amanda Seyfried-Starrer \u2018Testament of Ann Lee\u2019 Premieres in Venice"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe Venice Film Festival<\/a> hosted a world premiere on Monday afternoon for Mona Fastvold<\/a>\u2019s The Testament of Ann Lee, delivering something close to a religious experience.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe audience responded to the film, which stars Amanda Seyfried<\/a> as founder of the radical religious sect the Shakers, with raptrous applause, and a 15-minute standing ovation.<\/p>\n

\n\tSeyfried wipes back tears as the house light rose and joined director Fastvold in the film\u2019s signature arm-pumping shaker dance as the ovation rained down.
Fastvold\u2019s partner, and co-screenwriter Brady Corbet<\/a> worked the crowd and kept the ovation at a fever pitch. Fastvold looked to be in tears as well, turning around to hug her daughter with Corbet who beamed with pride.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Shakers were a cult-like group, which formed as an offshoot of Quakerism in Manchester, England in 1747. They got their name from worship practices that included trembling, dancing and speaking in tongues. Founder Lee espoused gender and social equality while believing herself to be the female incarnation of Christ. Its members practiced strict celibacy. The Shakers ended up fleeing to America to escape persecution, ultimately settling near Albany, New York to build their utopia.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Testament of Ann Lee, which Fastvold directed from a script she co-wrote with her The Brutalist partner Corbet, also stars Thomasin McKenzie, Lewis Pullman, Stacy Martin, Tim Blake Nelson, Christopher Abbott, Matthew Beard, Scott Handy, Jamie Bogyo, Viola Prettejohn and David Cale with music by Oscar winner Daniel Blumberg, also from Corbet\u2019s monumental work The Brutalist. Described as \u201cspeculative retelling,\u201d the film features than a dozen original Shaker hymns transformed into ecstatic \u201cmovements\u201d with choreography from Celia Rowlson-Hall, who worked with Corbet on Vox Lux.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn her festival director\u2019s statement, Fastvold confirmed that while she was raised in a secular household, Lee\u2019s prophecies, \u201chowever implausible,\u201d moved her deeply. \u201cNot because I share her faith, but because I recognize in her a yearning for justice, transcendence, and communal grace. Her radical pursuit of a self-fashioned utopia speaks to the creative impulse at the heart of all artistic endeavor: the urgent need to shape the world anew.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe said her film is offered as a tribute to Lee\u2019s dream \u201cand the silence that now surrounds it.\u201d The Testament of Ann Lee has its world premiere on Monday afternoon inside Sala Grande. The Venice Film Festival runs Aug. 27-Sept. 6.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Venice Film Festival hosted a world premiere on Monday afternoon for Mona Fastvold\u2019s The Testament of Ann…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":192181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[17496,107379,185,171,107380,67,132,68,101337,30989],"class_list":{"0":"post-192180","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-amanda-seyfried","9":"tag-brady-corbet","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-mona-fastvold","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us","16":"tag-venice-2025","17":"tag-venice-film-festival"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115130617567537128","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}