Berlinale 2026 – Animol ★★★★

Released: 23 October 2026

Director: Ashley Walters

Starring: Tut Nyuot, Ryan Dean, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Stephen Graham, Vladyslav Baliuk

After winning widespread acclaim for his Emmy-nominated performance as DI Luke Bascombe in Netflix’s 2025 British hit Adolescence, Ashley Walters makes his feature directorial debut with Animol.

Written by Nick Love, the film follows Troy (played by Tut Nyuot, fresh from his breakout role in Stephen King adaptation The Long Walk), a teenager sent to a young offender institution for conspiracy to commit murder. Inside, he is pushed to the breaking point: exposed to violence and racism, and pressured into making difficult choices by his psychopathic cellmate Mason (Ryan Dean).

Walters captures the institution as a suffocating, claustrophobic world, mirroring Troy’s mounting distress and emotional instability. Vulnerable and alone, he is driven to extreme measures simply to survive. His estranged mother Joy (Sharon Duncan-Brewster) visits with promises that she is finally clean and ready to welcome him home, but Troy is too deep in despair to believe an escape is possible. Relief comes in the form of Krystian (Vladyslav Baliuk), a fellow inmate and shy young Polish kid caught trying to steal glue from a library – someone who plainly does not belong in a coercive environment governed by its own brutal codes and complex power structures. Over the weeks, an unspoken attraction develops between them.

Animol draws on familiar elements of the queer prison drama, recently explored in films such as Great Freedom (2021) and Le Paradis (2023), but it approaches desire and vulnerability in its own way. Set against a backdrop of toxic masculinity and institutional violence, the film treats intimacy as both a danger and a form of resistance.

The cast includes many relative newcomers, and they hold their own. While Nyuot delivers a compelling, emotionally layered performance as Troy, Baliuk and Sekou Diaby are equally impressive as the gentle Krystian and the volatile Dion. Walters also reunites with his Adolescence co-star Stephen Graham, who brings gravitas and compassion to his role as the institution’s education officer Claypole.

Animol has much to say about machismo, shame, and sexuality, and it does so without overdramatizing or flattening its characters. The tension rarely lets up, drawing the audience into Troy and Krystian’s fragile bond while prompting us to reflect on the culture of repression and shame that surrounds them. In a Berlinale 2026 Q&A, Walters explained that his own past, including time spent in prison, motivated him to tell this story with honesty and respect.

Animol is a brilliantly powerful debut feature from the British director, and a standout achievement from its cast and crew – one that should make a strong impact when it eventually reaches UK cinemas.