<\/p>\n
Searchlight Pictures has acquired writer-director Mona Fastvold\u2019s \u201cThe Testament Of Ann Lee,\u201d for North America and most of the world, the company announced on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The musical starring Amanda Seyfried will be released theatrically at the end of this year.<\/p>\n
More from TheWrap<\/strong><\/p>\n Directed and co-written by Mona Fastvold and co-starring Lewis Pullman, the film is a musical retelling of the founding of the controversial and often persecuted Christian sect and its colorful leader, with dancing and songs adapted from real life Shaker hymns.<\/p>\n In his review of the film, TheWrap\u2019s Ben Croll wrote: \u201cA work of unshakable, near-pyrrhic zeal about a subject defined by the same qualities, this intimate and maximalist musical resembles little else at this year\u2019s\u00a0Venice Film Festival, or in the cinema of 2025. Fastvold fuses form with function to meet an 18th-century religious leader on her own terms, delivering a thrillingly modern incantation of an antiquated tune.\u201d<\/p>\n Seyfried previously said there was nothing easy about the role. However, the challenges she faced portraying the real-life founder of the Shakers taught her she is able \u201cto do things I didn\u2019t think I could do.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou name it,\u201d Seyfried told TheWrap\u2019s Steve Pond at the Toronto International Film Festival. \u201cGetting over my own insecurities with playing somebody who had so much power and felt so strong-willed and someone so committed and someone so devoted. That\u2019s it. That\u2019s not me. But there\u2019s so many qualities about her I could relate to.\u201d<\/p>\n CAA Media Finance brokered the deal with Searchlight execs Chan Phung, Paul Hoffman, and Don Hardison.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Testament Of Ann Lee\u201d made its world premiere to critical acclaim at the Venice Film Festival, currently holding a 90% Rotten Tomatoes score.<\/p>\n Deadline first reported the news.<\/p>\n The post Searchlight Acquires Mona Fastvold\u2019s \u2018The Testament of Ann Lee\u2019<\/a> appeared first on TheWrap<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source ca.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Searchlight Pictures has acquired writer-director Mona Fastvold\u2019s \u201cThe Testament Of Ann Lee,\u201d for North America and most of the world, the company announced on Tuesday. The musical starring Amanda Seyfried will be released theatrically at the end of this year. More from TheWrap Directed and co-written by Mona Fastvold and co-starring Lewis Pullman, the film […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2060596,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[346873,352242,308333,352241,315695,363769,318702,333428],"class_list":["post-2060595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-amanda-seyfried","tag-ann-lee","tag-lewis-pullman","tag-mona-fastvold","tag-searchlight-pictures","tag-the-testament-of-ann-lee","tag-toronto-international-film-festival","tag-venice-film-festival"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Searchlight-Acquires-Mona-Fastvolds-\u2018The-Testament-of-Ann-Lee.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2060595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2060595"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2060595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2060597,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2060595\/revisions\/2060597"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2060596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2060595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2060595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2060595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}