Christopher Andrews (Bring Them Down) is directing the thriller Cavendish and has recruited Sophie Thatcher (Heretic), Erin Kellyman (28 Years Later: The Bone Temple), and Joe Alwyn to star in the feature.
Cornerstone will handle international sales and distribution and will launch sales at Cannes. CAA Media Finance is handling domestic.
Cavendish is produced by Ivana MacKinnon and Emily Leo (How to Have Sex) from Wild Swim Films together with January Films’ Rosa Attab and Jacqueline De Croy (You Were Never Really Here) alongside Klaudia Smieja-Rostworowska and Bogna Szewczyk-Skupien (The Brutalist) from the Polish production company Madants.
The film was developed in collaboration with BBC Film and also received funding from the Polish Film Institute’s cash rebate program. Production is set to begin in Poland in September.
The film’s synopsis reads: 1645: Accused of witchcraft on her wedding day, a privileged young bride (Thatcher) is pursued by a ruthless witch hunter (Alwyn). Forced into an uneasy alliance with a sharp-witted poacher living on the margins of society (Kellyman), the two women fight back, turning their powerlessness into strength through violence, wit, and defiance.
Andrews is best known for his debut feature, Bring Them Down, which premiered at TIFF in 2024. The film stars Barry Keoghan and Christopher Abbott. It won the Douglas Hickox Award for Outstanding Debut Director at the 2024 British Independent Film Awards.