Mona Fastvold

Fastvold's directing career started with The Sleepwalker in 2014 — her feature debut, which she co-wrote. A psychological drama with a slow-burn atmosphere, it premiered at Sundance and established her voice as a director who's more interested in what's unspoken than what's said out loud. The kind of film where a single scene — a conversation at a kitchen table that turns imperceptibly wrong — does more work than most films' entire third acts. Critics noticed. She followed that with The World to Come (2020), a period drama set in 19th-century rural America that charted the relationship between two neighboring women. The film earned her further recognition on the international festival circuit and showed she could work with a larger canvas without losing the intimacy that made The Sleepwalker compelling. Two features in, and a clear directorial sensibility was already locked in. The Brutalist (2024) marked a significant expansion of her profile — not as director but as co-writer. The film became one of the defining cinematic conversations of 2024, and Fastvold's contribution to its screenplay put her name in front of an audience that might not have caught her earlier work. She didn't just ride that wave, either: The Testament of Ann Lee followed in 2025, her third directorial feature, continuing a run that's been remarkably consistent in both quality and intent. Fastvold's also credited as an actress in some projects (Wikipedia), though her screen-acting work is less documented than her work behind the camera.