Lesley Manville's new crime thriller Winter of the Crow impressed the critics after it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, and now it's taken a a big step forward to releasing in the UK.
Based on a short story titled Professor Andrews Goes to Warsaw by Nobel Prize-winning author Olga Tokarczuk, the film stars Manville as a gender-swapped version of the titular character.
It's 1981 and martial law has just been implemented in Poland, which means that the Professor is stuck in Warsaw as chaos unfolds all around her.
She captures the murder of a student by the secret police in a photograph, and becomes hunted herself. Her only hope appears to be the British ambassador, but can he trusted to help her rather than turn her in now she is considered a fugitive?
The film has now been acquired for UK distribution by Signature Entertainment. While it doesn't have a release date yet, it's now only a matter of time.
"Winter Of The Crow is an atmospheric, tense and powerful thriller, skillfully directed by Kasia Adamik and with a powerhouse performance by British acting legend Lesley Manville at its heart," Signature's CCO Elizabeth Williams said (via ScreenDaily).
"We love films like this and are excited to release it in 2026."
Critics agreed about Manville's performance, with Variety writing: "Manville carries the film with an air of increasingly raw determination... It's bracing to see the star at the centre of a story."
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"While not breaking new narrative ground, its pace, gritty Bourne Identity-style approach and Manville's gripping turn give it plenty of mainstream appeal," Screen International stated, while The Guardian said: "The Oscar nominee makes for a compelling heroine in a solid and intermittently suspenseful tale."
IndieWire was full of surprise for the behind-the-scenes talent, writing: "Tomasz Naumiuk's soup-thick cinematography is textured enough to see the sterile air of the film's brutalist interiors, and to get lost in the hopeless void of the Warsaw streets at night. Aleksandra Kierzkowska's production design is similarly lifeless and lived-in all at once."