Taylor Swift Is Making Her Feature Directorial Debut for Searchlight Pictures
The writing was on the walls with the release of Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well” short film earlier this year.
The global pop star and Ticketmaster disruptor has revealed that she will make her feature directorial debut Searchlight Pictures, from an original script she has penned. More details about what that film will be about will be released later on. The news also comes on the heels of Variety tapping Swift to appear alongside “Banshees of Inisherin” director Martin McDonagh in the publication’s Directors on Directors series.
More from IndieWire
Swift has long been vocal about her aspirations to direct a full-length movie. While debuting Oscar contender “All Too Well: The Short Film” at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year, she said, “It would be so fantastic to write and direct something.” She directed the 15-minute “All Too Well” film, an adaptation of her 2012 track that coincided with the re-recorded “Red (Taylor’s Version),” as well as recently helmed the Cinderella-inspired “Bejeweled” music video featuring Oscar winner Laura Dern and HAIM.
Swift has been canny about the cinematic influences like John Cassavetes and Noah Baumbach that informed the film as well as on her surprise 2020 pandemic album “Folklore.”
Starring Sadie Sink and Dylan O’Brien, “All Too Well” received a limited theatrical release from Universal Pictures in major cities this year and screened at Tribeca and Toronto in 35mm, accompanied by live appearances from Swift.
“I think I gave myself permission to completely make that jump into making a narrative short film because this is not a music video; we approached everything differently,” Swift said at Tribeca of the film, which centers on a deteriorating relationship between doomed lovers. “You know, in shooting on 35 millimeter and all the decisions that were made to create these characters and dive into this world.”
The Grammy winner recently shared behind-the-scenes footage of “All Too Well,” saying that the short film was over a decade in the making. “I loved every second of it and I will always remember it,” Swift captioned.
During a Hollywood Reporter interview, Swift said she’d love to trade places a director like Guillermo del Toro: “Imagine having that imagination, that visual vocabulary and that astonishing body of work,” Swift shared. “To have such a diverse storytelling range but somehow put your distinctive artistic fingerprint on every film.”
Her “Eras” tour — her first in five years, and encompassing albums including “Lover,” “Folklore,” “Evermore,” and this year’s “Midnights” — begins in March 2023. She has a total of 11 Grammy wins and 42 nominations and is the first and only woman solo artist to win the Grammy for Album of the Year three times for her solo recordings.
Best of IndieWire
New Movies: Release Calendar for December 9, Plus Where to Watch the Latest Films
Guillermo del Toro's Favorite Movies: 45 Films the Director Wants You to See
Sign up for Indiewire's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
