First-look images have officially dropped for queer director Andrew Haigh’s buzzy new film A Long Winter, and it looks like the All of Us Strangers director is trading in quiet, moody London flats for a sub-zero survivalist setting.
After devastating us all with Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal, Haigh is taking his signature knack for human vulnerability straight into the freezing, frostbitten wilderness. Layer up and prepare yourselves now, folx, because we have a feeling we’re all about to be left sobbing in a snowbank! 
The film took 20 years–yes, 20 years!–for Haigh to get produced. It’s based off gay author Colm Tóibín’s acclaimed short story. Set in the remote Colorado mountains in the 1950s, the story follows a young man who returns home from military service to help his family prepare for the brutal season ahead.
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“Within that story was everything I wanted to make films about — I remember reading it and thinking, ‘This is the perfect manifestation of what I care about,’” Haigh tells the Hollywood Reporter. “No one wanted to make it.”
Haigh continues, “If you look at all of the movies I’ve made, there are these themes bubbling under: longing and trying to deal with loss and trying to understand who you are in the world and how to fit into the world that doesn’t make sense to you. Those themes are very inherent in the story, but told in a [similar] way to what I’ve always tried to do with my filmmaking: Excavate the complicated emotions beneath the surface and find a way to get them onto the screen.”
Shot on location in Alberta, Canada, A Long Winter stars Kit Connor (Heartstopper) and Fred Hechinger (The White Lotus, Gladiator II), with Ebon Moss-Bachrach (The Bear) and Caitríona Balfe (Outlander) bringing serious dramatic weight to the high-stakes mountain dynamic. Rounding out the cast is D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, David Furr, and Martin Freeman.
A Long Winter will make its Canadian debut at the Toronto International Film Festival next month before heading to the New York Film Festival in the fall.
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