Simon Pegg and Lizzy McAlpine discuss improvised Normandy drama Only What We Carry

Simon Pegg and Lizzy McAlpine helped turn Only What We Carry into the kind of low-margin, high-trust production that increasingly defines ambitious independent film. Jamie Adams wrote and directed the Normandy-set drama in Deauville, France, over a six-day shoot, with the cast working mostly without the safety net of a heavily scripted production.

That compressed schedule shaped the film’s texture. A project shot in less than a week leaves little room for coverage, reshoots or technical correction, which makes performance carry more of the weight. In a story built around memory, estrangement and reassessment, that gamble appears central to the film’s identity: Adams leaned into improvisation, and the result is meant to feel immediate rather than polished. The film was still in post-production when it was launched to buyers at the European Film Market in February 2026, a sign of how early financing and packaging now overlap with the creative process in the indie economy.

Pegg plays Julian Johns, a once-formidable Moulin Rouge artistic director whose isolated life is disrupted when former dancer Charlotte Levant, played by Sofia Boutella, seeks him out after reading a news article that reveals his whereabouts. Charlotte Gainsbourg plays Levant’s fiercely protective sister, while Quentin Tarantino appears as Julian’s publisher. The ensemble also includes Lizzy McAlpine, whose role marks her feature film debut, alongside Liam Hellmann and other supporting players.

Adams has described the project as an extension of his improvisation-driven filmmaking style, and that approach appears especially suited to a film about characters trying to define who gets to control a public legacy. Variety reported that Adams was drawn to questions about how audiences reassess complicated artists over time, a theme that fits naturally with a story centered on a man whose reputation once carried real cultural weight and whose present is shaped by distance, isolation and unfinished business.

Only What We Carry premiered at the 2026 Tribeca Festival in New York City, which runs June 3 to June 14. The festival’s June 6 screening placed the film in front of buyers and audiences after a production path that was unusually lean even by independent standards. With Pegg also listed as an executive producer, the film stands as both a performance piece and a reminder of how much risk contemporary indie filmmaking now asks of its cast, crew and backers.