Interview: Mona Fastvold – The Testament of Ann Lee

Her cinema deals with female interiority under constraint, isolation as both burden and refuge, and working with the human body as a site of meaning and resistance, in just three offerings in The Sleepwalker (2014), The World to Come (2020) and now The Testament of Ann Lee, Norwegian filmmaker Mona Fastvold asserts that repression and longing can exist in both silence and in here, specifically in song. A Venice Film Festival competition selection, in our brief virtual chat I Mona Fastvold about that first blueprint and knowing when this would filmed for larger formats (70mm), and the experience of building pre-production a creative incubator alongside choreographer Celia Rowlson Hall. Searchlight Pictures releases The Testament of Ann Lee on Christmas day.