February 27, 2024
Anthony Behar/Sipa USA
Ishana Shyamalan, daughter of director M. Night Shyamalan, makes her own directorial debut in June with the film 'The Watchers.'
Ishana Shyamalan, the daughter of famed director M. Night Shyamalan, known for his plot-twisting thrillers, will take her own stab at the genre this June with a new film, "The Watchers," that touches on familiar supernatural themes.
A trailer for the upcoming movie, produced by M. Night's Blinding Edge Pictures, offers a peek into a disturbing forest in Ireland where a group of strangers are being watched by mysterious creatures from the woods. The film is based on a 2021 novel of the same name by A.M. Shine.
The film stars Dakota Fanning as Mina, who joins the other captives in a place of shelter and leads the search for answers about who's watching over them. Georgina Campbell, Oliver Finnegan and Olwen Fouéré also star in the movie, which is due to hit theaters on June 7.
Ishana, 22, previously collaborated with her dad, co-writing and directing several episodes of his Apple TV series "Servant." She also worked with her father on his recent films "Old" and "Knock at the Cabin." She wrote the script for "The Watchers," which was filmed last summer in Dublin, Wicklow and Galway. When filming wrapped in September, she shared several photos from the set on Instagram.
M. Night, who was raised in Penn Valley, Montgomery County, has made the Philadelphia area the backdrop of many of his projects over the years. He and his wife, Bhavna, have three daughters: Saleka, Ishana and Shivani. The family has lived in a home on a 125-acre estate called Ravenwood in Willistown Township, Chester County, for nearly two decades. Last year, Shyamalan bought another farm property in Chester County to protect it from development and later sold it to a preservation group, which turned it into a public nature preserve.
Ishana attended her father's alma mater, New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, and joined him on "The Servant" after he shared his admiration for her short films and music videos. One of them included a video for her sister, Saleka, who's a classically trained musician. That project was filmed at Ortlieb's bar in Northern Liberties.
"From making shorts, to going to Tisch, to becoming one of our top writer/directors on 'Servant' to this incredible moment of #TheWatchers in theaters this summer ... Ishana has always made me very proud," M. Night wrote on X, formerly Twitter, in a post sharing the new trailer. "And even better than making a dazzling film, she is a wonderful person."
