Fastvold became interested in the Shakers while directing her previous film, “The World to Come,” also a historical drama set upstate. She had been looking for music—something “that could have been passed down”—and came across a hymn called “Pretty Mother’s Home,” written by a Black Shaker sister named Patsy Roberts Williamson. “I started reading about the various utopian societies that were forming, and it took me down the rabbit hole to Ann Lee,” Fastvold said. “She’s maybe the first American feminist.” Before her jailhouse vision, Lee had birthed and lost four babies. “She somehow takes all that grief and turns it into this kind of power, this active choice of saying, ‘I’m going to mother the entire world.’ ”journey-inline-newsletterinline-newsletter