A young woman arrives at a remote health center for deaf people, but nothing is as it seems. If you don’t immediately recognize this set-up, you probably haven’t seen it. retreatBritish writer-director Ted Evans’ genre-bending debut thriller, which kept the audience guessing till the end.
Billed as “the world’s first deaf thriller” and starring Anne Zander, James Joseph Boyle and Sophie Stone, retreathighlighted by heart As a hidden gem, it’s also a major reason for Evans to be included in the 2026 UK BAFTA Breakthrough list of emerging talent backed by Netflix, unveiled on Wednesday.
In his previous work, the creative directed the TV documentary Rose Ayling-Ellis: signs of change And short films.
heart Talked to Evans about making a splash with his first feature, a short film of the same title, making the BAFTA Breakthrough list and what’s next.
Sorry to say that my sign language is not correct. How exciting is it to be a BAFTA Breakthrough Creative?
Oh, this is a great honour. It was a huge surprise to be acknowledged and be among these amazing creators, especially my lead actress, Sophie Stone. It’s great to be with him for this honor.
how similar the features are retreat Your short film which had the same title?
It’s a long story. So I made a short film with the same name, and it was about a community. But it was a very small fortune that I made about 14 years ago with very little money. That short did well within the community, but I wasn’t satisfied with it – there was more.
Then I spent a decade digging and developing something, and it became thematically completely different. It has the same title, and so did Sophie briefly, but they’re not really connected. The basic story is about our filmmakers and actors coming together, and the project was born from that.
It was so cool to have a movie where all the lead actors are deaf, and I heard that special attention was paid to the community behind the scenes as well.
yes of course. As a Deaf person, I grew up in this community, and I’m obviously very passionate about what I call “sign language cinema.” We all have stories ourselves. We are all part of the human experience, and cinema is a wonderful way to show the full diversity of what it means to be human. It has been wonderful to bring deaf people, our languages and our culture into cinema.
We had such an amazing cast, and we also had some deaf talent behind the camera. We had sign language directors, assistant directors and runners and things like that. So that was great.
And as a filmmaker, working with sign language, which is a visual language, taught me a lot about the medium.
Can you share some more information on this?
If you think about continuity, you have to make sure that continuity flows with every shot, every take. And you think about rhythm and visual grammar. Working with sign language has helped me understand filmmaking as a filmmaker.
I am not saying that spoken language films do not work. [focus on the same things]But you can avoid ADR [Automated Dialogue Replacement]Space for dialogue in posts. It’s completely different when you’re working with sign language.
Courtesy of Ted Evans, BAFTA/Sen Seven
What are you looking forward to from the BAFTA Breakthrough programmes?
I have lots of ideas. I write, I direct. I’m looking forward to networking and meeting people with more experience and connections in the industry, just to work on the next chapter and see what’s possible. Obviously, there are a lot of utopian dreams, but you have to be realistic in today’s world. Obviously, this is not easy. I’m just going to be like a sponge, and I’m really excited to learn and make more connections.
You mentioned that you have a lot of ideas. Is there a new film or series you are particularly focused on developing?
My slate is pretty healthy. Let me say that I have a horror development going on with BBC Film that is in the very early stages. I’m really excited about it. I’m hoping to do more work within the community and branching out as well. So, it’s an exciting time.
retreat Shows a variety of sign languages, but focuses on British Sign Language (BSL). Can foreigners understand?
In fact, American Sign Language is very different from British Sign Language, and in fact, more countries are influenced by American Sign Language. In Australia, they have Auslan, which is related to BSL, but they’re all their own languages. But yes, actually, in retreatWe have many languages including German.
If you think about the Native American tribes in America, they all had their own languages, but they had an actual sign language called hand talk, and it was a way for people to trade between different communities.
What is your hope? retreat And its impact?
Ultimately, I always feel like I have two audiences. I have my community, and then I have the rest of the world. For both of them, number one, you want them to go through an exciting journey. You want them to enjoy the movie, but there are still layers they can delve into.
I hope this is universal. I hope this isn’t just about our experience. It’s about choice. It’s about understanding what makes you you, whether it’s your community or the experiences you go through, and what happens when you take one of those out. Hopefully it will make people think. We are releasing the film in theaters early next year, which I am really excited about. We’ve had an amazing year, starting with our world premiere in Toronto and traveling a lot around the world. So, I feel really blessed and honored.