Alan Friel’s feature directorial debut Woken — a post-apocalyptic science fiction thriller starring Erin Kellyman (28 Years Later: The Bone Temple) and Maxine Peake — arrives on UK digital platforms on May 25, 2026. Produced by Fantastic Films and Propaganda Italia with support from Screen Ireland, the film originally premiered at the 2023 Trieste Science+Fiction Festival before making its national debut at the 2024 Dublin Film Festival.
Woken follows Anna, who wakes up with no memory on a remote island in the North Sea — pregnant, disoriented, and stranded in the middle of a worldwide pandemic. Helen and Peter, a seemingly kind couple, nurse her back to health, but as Anna slowly pieces together the world around her, she comes to a terrible realization: the human race is close to extinction, and the couple’s intentions may not be what they seem.
Kellyman brings a raw, physically committed performance to a role that demands it — she’s fresh off her acclaimed appearance in 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple and is emerging as one of genre cinema’s most compelling new leads. Peake, long a force in UK prestige drama, lends the film the kind of measured menace that makes the slow-burn premise genuinely unsettling. The cast also includes Ivanno Jeremiah, Peter McDonald, and Oscar Coleman.
Woken lands on UK digital May 25, 2026.
