Festivals - Sundance Film Festival 2021 : The world to come will have its world premiere

By Mulder, 06 january 2021

Mona Fastvold’s rugged period romance, The World to Come, is adapted from Jim Shepard's 2017 short story of the same name and premiered in competition at the Venice International Film Festival.

In eighteenth-century upstate New York, Abigail (Katherine Waterston) is increasingly defeated by grief and the drudgery of rural life. Her deference and propriety maintain a mundane equilibrium with her husband, Dyer (Casey Affleck), but her narrated dairies offer a picture into a richer internal life. When spring brings newcomers Tallie (Vanessa Kirby) and husband Finney (Christopher Abbott) to the otherwise empty landscape, the journal entries frantically anticipate—and then enthusiastically document—an affair with Tallie. As menial machinations are interrupted and patriarchal sovereignty is questioned, both marriages buckle. The wives’ connection is threatened, but Abigail and Tallie’s love for each other is steadfast, both onscreen and in handwritten pages. Fastvold exquisitely captures the oppression of settler life while adopting a devoutly literary approach to portray her protagonist’s internal life, striking a transportive balance between warmth and chill.

Synopsis :
Somewhere along the mid-nineteenth century U.S. eastern seaboard border, two neighboring couples struggle against misery and isolation, witnessing a splendid but trying landscape.

The world to come (USA)
Directed by Mona Fastvold
Produced by Casey Affleck, Whitaker Lader, Pamela Koffler, David Hinojosa, Margarethe Baillou
Executive Producers : Christine Vachon, Peter Touche, Jamie Jessop, Andrew Morrison, Carole Baraton, Yohann Comte, Pierre Mazars, Ilya Stewart, Murad Osmann, Pavel Buria
Co-Producers : Patricia Poienaru, Ben Kuller
Written by Ron Hansen, Jim Shepard
Production Designer : Jean Vincent Puzos
Starring Katherine Waterston, Vanessa Kirby, Casey Affleck, Christopher Abbott
Music by Daniel Blumberg
Music Supervisor : Tracy McKnight
Cinematography : André Chemetoff
Costume Designer : Luminita Lungu
Edited by Dávid Jancsó
Distributed by Bleecker Street (https://bleeckerstreetmedia.com/the-world-to-come)
Release date : February 2, 2021 (Sundance)
Running time : 98 minutes

Premiere : feb. 2 - 9:00pm // Second screening : feb. 3 - 4:00pm (local time)

(Source : press release)