SCREENING FROM FEBRUARY 20TH.

Showing exclusively at the IFI on 70mm, Mona Fastvold’s third film is a highly cinematic and defiantly idiosyncratic interpretation of the life of the titular Ann Lee (Amanda Seyfried), charismatic leader of the Shakers, a celibate Christian sect founded in England in 1747 before becoming established in the 1780s. Lee’s followers worshipped through ecstatic song and movement, and Fastvold’s exhilarating film is closer to a quasi-musical/experimental dance piece than a conventional biopic.

Notes by David O’Mahony