Prima Facie has its UK premiere tonight at the Royal Festival Hall, part of the 70th BFI London Film Festival. The previous afternoon, Cynthia Erivo gave a Screen Talk at the same venue. She said what she needs audiences to understand.
Adapted from Suzie Miller's Tony Award-winning stage play, the film follows Tessa Ensler, a defence barrister who rises from a working-class background before being sexually assaulted by a colleague. Susanna White directs. Erivo is also executive producer. "I just knew immediately that I wanted to do this," she told the audience when asked what drew her to the role.
Her language around the film's subject was precise. On consent: "It is more to do with the way we receive 'no' than the way we see a 'yes.'" On the specific challenge of depicting violence against a Black woman: she hopes the film challenges "preconceived notions about how Black women particularly experience pain." A line she delivered plainly at the Screen Talk: "We expect more violence for her to feel the pain."
Filming required what Erivo described as some of the hardest days of her career. She credited the production's intimacy coordinator by name: "Lizzy, our intimacy coordinator, was really helpful with creating a space that felt very safe." She added that the profession as a whole is undervalued. "Not enough credit is given to intimacy coordinators." Of co-star Daniel Ings, who plays the colleague, she said he "from the beginning, was very, very kind and immediately wanted to have a conversation" about looking out for one another. The hardest part of the shoot, she said, was not the filming. "The hardest thing was actually coming back from filming it."
The original play starred Jodie Comer in the West End and on Broadway. Prima Facie opens in UK cinemas on November 13, 2026. No US release has been announced.
