Alice Birch to make her directorial debut with SWEETSICK

Searchlight Pictures have announced that Alice Birch will shortly be making her directorial debut with her original screenplay SWEETSICK, and that two-time Academy Award® Winner Cate Blanchett (TAR, NIGHTMARE ALLEY) will star. The film will shoot this Autumn in the United Kingdom and Greece and is being produced by Tessa Ross, Juliette Howell and Theo Barrowclough from House Productions (CONCLAVE, THE WONDER) alongside Blanchett and her Dirty Films banner. Lee Groombridge will also produce, while Chris Oddy will be the Production Designer and Olivia Pentelow will feature in the supporting cast.

SWEETSICK follows a mercurial woman (Blanchett) with a strange and piercing gift – the ability to see what others most intimately need, often at great personal cost – who sets out on a journey home.

Birch said, “I could not be more excited to be making my debut feature as a director with such an extraordinary team of filmmakers and collaborators. I am in the safest hands with Tessa Ross and her brilliant team at House, and am so proud to be working with Searchlight and Film4. To have the peerless Cate Blanchett at the centre of it is thrilling.”

“We’re all very big believers in Alice Birch and it’s been wonderful to see that the fantastic team she’s gathered around her, not least the amazing Cate, feel the same way – all drawn in by her bold, beautiful vision,” added Ross.

Blanchett is a two-time Academy Award® winner whose versatile work across the stage and screen has solidified her as one of the greatest performers of her generation. She rose to prominence for her performance in ELIZABETH, for which she received her first Academy Award® nomination. Since then, she has been Oscar-nominated for her roles in NOTES ON A SCANDAL, I’M NOT THERE, ELIZABETH: THE GOLDEN AGE, CAROL, and most recently, TAR. Blanchett has also starred in Searchlight’s NIGHTMARE ALLEY, as well as THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy, INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL,THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON, CINDERELLA, THOR: RAGNAROK, OCEAN'S 8, and DON'T LOOK UP. 

Prolific and acclaimed writer Birch broke out with the highly acclaimed LADY MACBETH, for which she was BAFTA-nominated. She then earned a WGA award for her work on SUCCESSION and later received high praise for her work on the TV adaptation of Sally Rooney’s novel NORMAL PEOPLE, for which she was Emmy®-nominated. Birch wrote a second Sally Rooney TV adaption, CONVERSATIONS WITH FRIENDS, before becoming the writer and showrunner behind the series reimagining of DEAD RINGERS. On the film front, additional screenplay credits include THE WONDER, which garnered her another BAFTA nomination, MOTHERING SUNDAY, and THE END WE START FROM.