Empire of Light | TIFF Premiere Images

The Searchlight Pictures film, marking Mendes’ first solo credit as screenwriter and starring Oscar winners Olivia Colman and Colin Firth alongside fast-rising talent Micheal Ward (Top Boy, Small Axe), received its TIFF premiere yesterday (12th). Mendes, whose previous feature 1917 won seven BAFTAs, including best film, and three Oscars, attended alongside longtime producing partner Pippa Harris and the film’s key cast, including Colman, Ward, Firth, Toby Jones, Tanya Moodie, Tom Brooke and Crystal Clarke.

Set in a seaside town on the south coast of England in the early 1980s, Empire of Light is a love story that revolves around an old cinema. Searchlight has described it as “a powerful and poignant story about human connection and the magic of cinema.” As well as reuniting Colman and Firth, who played husband and wife in the 2021 drama Mothering Sunday, the film also reunites Mendes with cinematographer Roger Deakins, with whom he worked on Jarhead, Revolutionary Road, Skyfall and 1917.