Jenna Ortega and Martin Freeman are set to star in Jade Halley Bartlett‘s Miller’s Girl. The film will premiere at the 2024 Palm Springs International Film Festival on January 11, just days before its theater release on January 26. Barlett and the rest of the cast will attend the screening as a part of the fest’s Talking Pictures program, where they will answer Q&As. 

In the upcoming comedy-drama film, Freeman plays a failed writer named Jonathan Miller, while Ortega plays his curious student Cairo Sweet. The two lonely intellectuals are challenged when a creative writing assignment complicates their relationship and realities. 

Written by Barlett as a play in 2011, Miller’s Girl landed on the 2016 Black List, now marking this feature as Barlett’s writing and directing debut; Freeman will be executive producer with Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, James Weaver, Josh Fagen, and Mary-Margaret Kunze also producing. 

The Palm Springs International Film Festival announced the festival’s opening night film will be Thea Sharrock’s Wicked Little Letters on January 5, closing with Noah Pritzker’s Ex-Husbands on January 13. Alongside the screening of Miller’s Girl, as a part of the Talking Pictures Program, Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction will be featured with actor Jeffrey Wright; Greta Gerwig’s Barbie with Gerwig herself; Blitz Bazawule’s The Color Purple with actresses Danielle Brooks and Taraji P; Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon with screenwriter Eric Roth; Bradley Cooper’s Maestro with actress Carey Mulligan; and George C. Wolfe’s Rustin with actor Colman Domingo.