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UK filmmaker Paul Andrew Williams has cemented his return to independent filmmaking with Faith, a supernatural drama starring James McAvoy and Erin Doherty that has its world premiere as a TIFF Special Presentation. Faith follows a 2025 in which his feature Dragonfly hoovered up awards at festivals including Tribeca, Cairo and Galway Film Fleadh.
It has been 20 years since Williams first made waves on the independent filmmaking scene with London To Brighton. In 2014, he helmed BBC drama Murdered By My Boyfriend, which led to an influx of TV work, putting film on hold until 2021’s Bull. “At the time, once you’d got TV fwork it was guaranteed, whereas with film, it was feast or famine. If you’re not personally loaded, it’s hard to maintain waiting around [for projects to happen],” he reflects.
There was no waiting around for Faith. He wrote the script in August 2025, and James McAvoy joined the project shortly after. Shooting began in January, bound by a window of availability in the actor’s schedule. “Of course, it helps to have a film [Dragonfly] that people, the critics or whoever, think positively of,” says Williams. “But the fact that James McAvoy came on early was a big reason why the film advanced quickly. It’s as simple as that.”
Williams recalls he “played football with James a few times a while back” but it was the Portsmouth-born filmmaker’s relationship with McAvoy’s agent Ruth Young at United Agents that sealed the deal. “She was in Toronto with James and said to him, ‘I’ve read it, I think you should have a look at this.’”
McAvoy stars as a mysterious stranger who meets Doherty’s hard-working single mother around the time her life is upended by a tragic event. The film is set in an unspecified UK location and shot over five weeks in Leeds, where Williams also filmed Dragonfly, with many of the same crew.
Producers are Williams’ frequent collaborator Dominic Tighe of Giant Productions. Danny Page, founder of Scotland-based Homefront Productions and head of pictures at Blazing Griffin, boarded as a producer after McAvoy joined the project, having worked with him on the actor’s directorial debut, TIFF 2025 premiere California Schemin’. The UK’s Bankside Films — which also sold California Schemin’ — and France’s Logical Pictures are co-repping Faith internationally. True Brit acquired the UK-Ireland rights ahead of production completing.
The film is independently financed through equity from Blazing Griffin, Logical Content Ventures and Homefront Productions. Each company invested directly from its own production funds, allowing the filmmakers to retain full creative and commercial control of the project. That side of the business, confesses Williams, is not his forte — “You might as well ask me [about it] in Greek.”
Williams wanted to cast Doherty, whose credits include The Crown and Adolescence, after seeing a YouTube video. “It was her on her home street, where she grew up, talking about it,” he recalls. “I thought, ‘That’s someone normal who I think people will relate to.’”
While the project came together very quickly, the idea had been living in Williams’ head for some time. “Everyone to some extent has experienced loss,” he says. “And if they haven’t, I think that everyone has experienced that deep regret of having something they can’t get past, because it’s crossed the boundary of ever being back to where it was.”
He adds: “People cried a lot during the filming, but people also laughed. It was a cathartic experience for me.” Maintaining a sense of lightness while shooting was important, with two child actors having significant roles. “It was important for the crew to feel relaxed enough to make a joke. To be serious when necessary, and to piss about when necessary.”
Up next, Williams is writing for TV again and has 10 pages to go on another film script, a psychological horror not set in England. But, he adds: “What I want to do is make sure I can cover my mortgage next year.”
Williams maintains that filmmaking is not a glamorous job, and a test of patience and perseverance. “If you haven’t got money, and you’ve got a family, then it’s going to take ages [to build a career]. You need to give it everything and not give up,” he reflects.
“If you haven’t got the stamina to go through all the ups and downs — it’s happening, it’s not happening, having no money, thinking, ‘Everyone hates it, fuck what are we going to do?’… It’s tough.”
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