Searchlight Pictures has released a striking new trailer for ‘The Testament of Ann Lee,’ the latest feature from award-winning writer-director Mona Fastvold (The World to Come, The Brutalist). The film brings to the screen the extraordinary true story of Ann Lee, the charismatic founder of the Shakers, a radical devotional movement built on equality, communal living and spiritual devotion.
Academy Award nominee Amanda Seyfried stars as Ann Lee, portraying the Shakers’ irrepressible leader with a mix of fierce conviction and aching vulnerability. Preaching gender and social equality in a deeply divided era, Lee was revered by her followers and feared by those who saw her beliefs as dangerous heresy. The trailer teases a portrait of a woman driven by faith and vision, caught between rapture and persecution as she attempts to build a utopian society against overwhelming odds.
Fastvold’s film leans boldly into musical expression. ‘The Testament of Ann Lee’ features more than a dozen traditional Shaker hymns, reimagined as ecstatic, cinematic movements. These sequences are brought vividly to life through choreography by Celia Rowlson-Hall (Vox Lux), blending ritual, dance and devotion into something hypnotic and otherworldly. Adding to the film’s spiritual pulse is an original score and songs by Academy Award winner Daniel Blumberg (The Brutalist).
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‘The Testament of Ann Lee’ will be released in UK cinemas on 20th February 2026.
