Bleecker Street released the first trailer for “The Liberation” on Monday, Nov. 2. It follows Carrie Coon’s Rita into an “all-female commune” run by Lily James’ Ricki, a “magnetic young spiritual leader,” in the words of the studio’s synopsis. The Liberation trailer came with dates, too: a short Oscar-qualifying run in New York and Los Angeles starting Friday, Nov. 6, followed by a January theatrical rollout, Deadline reported. Bleecker Street now lists a limited release Jan. 8, 2027, and nationwide release Jan. 15.
Bella Ramsey and Odessa Young play Rita’s daughters, Ella and Jo, who “arrive unexpectedly and become drawn into the group’s seductive world,” the synopsis says. The story is set in 1980s New Jersey, per The Jewish Chronicle’s review, and Rita is a Holocaust survivor. Soon she’s torn between the family she walked out on and “the life she believes can save her.”
Guy Nattiv’s Grandmother Left Her Family for a Cult
Guy Nattiv, the Israeli director who won an Oscar for his short “Skin,” based Rita on his own grandmother, Ynetnews reported. “I was only 8 when my family took me to seminars to see my grandmother and participate with her in those meetings,” he said at Deadline’s Contenders London event, according to Deadline’s trailer story.
Only later did he learn it was a cult. Nattiv eventually took a camera to the group looking for answers, and he said he went in with “a lot of empathy.”
“She had the courage to do something very uncommon: To leave your family, say goodbye to your daughters and your husband and go into the unknown and try to save yourself,” he said.
When the film was cast in 2024, it was called “Harmonia,” with Naomi Watts set as Rita and Vicky Krieps as the leader, Variety reported. “As a woman in the 1980s going through a midlife crisis, my grandmother made the radical choice to leave my family and embed herself in an all-female cult, in an obsessive pursuit of happiness and meaning,” Nattiv said in a statement then.
Carrie Coon on Rita, Tracy Letts and a Haircut
Coon talked about Rita in Chicago last month, when the Chicago International Film Festival handed her its Artistic Achievement Award ahead of a screening at the Music Box Theatre, WBEZ reported. “It’s hard to get money for films about complicated women,” she said before the ceremony. “For a leading role like this to come my way is very rare. I’m not typically in that conversation.”
“So often people don’t experience frailty or weakness in my work, and so it was nice for me to get to explore that part of myself,” Coon said. “We cut my hair, which men get Oscars for, but that was fun for me. It almost feels like two different characters.”
Awards Radar editor in chief Joey Magidson, who caught it at Telluride, said Coon “is absolutely phenomenal, all but playing two characters,” according to the site’s trailer post.
Tracy Letts, Coon’s real-life husband, plays Rita’s husband. “Tracy is not the kind of actor who is going to take all the air out of a room,” she told WBEZ.
Coon also said Rita’s urge to let go of control made sense to her. “As a woman who’s a wife and a mother who makes decisions all day, I totally understand,” she said.
Bella Ramsey and Odessa Young Go Looking for Mom
Ramsey and Young have been attached since that 2024 casting. “I am honored to collaborate on my most personal film with the brilliant Naomi, Vicky, Bella and Odessa,” Nattiv said back then. (Ramsey’s fall also includes a Scottish castle, on season 2 of “The Celebrity Traitors.”)
At October’s BFI London Film Festival, the listing described a film in which “two young women attempt to extract their mother from a cult” and then “find themselves susceptible to its mysterious leader.”
When Does ‘The Liberation’ Come Out?
The film had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival on Sept. 4 and then went to Toronto, The Jerusalem Post reported. Writing from Toronto, Ynetnews’ Amir Bogen said Coon “gives an extraordinary performance as a woman in existential crisis.”
The BFI’s listing gives a running time of 126 minutes, plus a plain warning: “Contains scenes of drug use and nudity.”
The short Oscar-qualifying run starts Nov. 6 in New York and Los Angeles, according to Deadline. Bleecker Street lists Jan. 8, 2027, for select theaters and Jan. 15 for the nationwide release.
