JADAR

The 2026 edition of Manchester Film Festival kicked off with the world premiere of Kit Harington’s directorial debut, Psychopomp, starring Harry Melling and Ciarán Owens, the latter of whom accompanied Kit to the premiere. Before the screening, we sat down with the pair of old friends to discuss the bold new short film.

Psychopomp is a dark comedy short, shot in Northern England, starring Harry Melling as a desperate man who’s decided to end his own life with the help of hired assassin Liam (Ciarán Owens). This black comedy follows the unlikely pair’s road trip to what will be Harry’s ultimate resting place. Harry’s final day doesn’t go exactly as planned, but a budding friendship develops and Liam begins to sense that Harry’s making the wrong choice. As Harry weighs his existential crisis, has he left it too late to realise that his past doesn’t have to dictate his future?

At the Q&A, Kit revealed that the film has gotten into several film festivals but this is the only one he wanted to go to as the film is set and was short in the North (nearby Leeds and the surrounding area).

On the red carpet, Ciarán told me that “there’s nothing like” having a director who is an actor because “they totally get not only the process and the craft but also the anxiety.”

He elaborated, “When you’re building up to a big emotional moment, sometimes there can be a sense of, ‘Come on, we’ve got to get this done,’ and that was never the case with Kit; he really gave everyone space to play and to try things and to fail. God bless him ’cause there were probably some crazy choices that ended up on the cutting room floor, but he allowed us to do them. It’s a big difference.”

Kit added, “I guess I’d been with enough directors to know what type of direction I liked and what I didn’t. It was just about copying that, really, and taking that and going, ‘Okay, I like it when a director does this; I don’t like it when a director does that’ – when I’m notes-giving, that is,” he explained.

Whilst Kit found the transition from acting to directing to be “daunting”, Ciarán and Harry made things easier for him – purely by being so talented.

“I was very blessed with two wonderful actors, and that made things actually very simple. One of the harder things was, I found, genuinely – they’d do the scene, and I’d go, ‘Well, that’s great; I don’t really know what I say to that.’ So, I’d come in and go, ‘Can you give me vulnerability?’ You know, some crap note. And then they’d do it, and I’d be like, ‘That’s amazing. Who thought acting was so…’ And then that made me fall in love with acting again. I was like, ‘Ah, I wanna go do acting. This directing malarkey…’”

Whilst Kit is now best-known for his screen roles, particularly the male lead, Jon Snow, in Game of Thrones, he first found fame as a star of the stage, leading the first cast of War Horse. He most recently starred in the international (West End) premiere of what was then the most Tony Award-nominated play of all time, Slave Play. I asked him if he would ever consider directing theatre, to which he responded with a resounding, ‘No. God no. I actually wouldn’t, no.”

He elaborated, “I can totally, and do, understand, how film and TV directing is done and made. I don’t know how theatre directors do what they do. I really don’t. I’m not clever enough. They’re always much, much smarter than me.”

Ciarán added, “It feels like such a different discipline, doesn’t it? Directing is hard, right? But directing in the theatre, I think, is really tough.”

“It’s like a different language,” Kit explained. “It’s always a bit like when you go to the dentists and they start speaking another language. I never understand how theatre directors… During tech, they’re like-“

“Wizards,” Ciarán joked.

“Yeah,” Kit agreed. “It’s amazing.”

When asked how he has found it starring in a short film compared to a feature, Ciarán said, “With any project, it’s about: What’s the character? What’s the relationships? And, in a way, the medium, whatever that is, you’re just looking at building that character’s arc and that journey. Even though we only shot it over three days, we were all a really tight-knit group.”

“It felt longer than that,” Kit admitted.

“”It did, didn’t it?” Ciarán agreed, before saying, “That sounds like you didn’t have a nice time,” prompting us all to burst out laughing.

“It felt really, really long,” Ciarán said, with Kit explaining, “It lives in my memory as longer than three days.”

“But I think, for sure, we all felt like we could have kept going with that group; it was a special gang.” Ciarán told me.

I ended the interview by asking Kit – who is very open about politics, activism and humanitarianism – how important the arts are in the current political climate.

“That’s a big question,” Kit said. “It’s always important, isn’t it? It’s of utmost importance. So, yeah. It’s a very simple answer.”

“Period,” I said, with Kit responding, “Period. Full stop.”

Whilst some may have hoped for a more thoughtful response, I appreciate I had already gone over the recommended time limit, and Kit may not have wanted to get all political at the premiere of his directorial debut. Last time I saw him, I thanked him for using his platform to endorse Labour. He said whilst he does not have much of a platform, it was the least he could do (but I’m sure, like me, he is now incredibly disappointed in Labour – but that’s enough politics for now!).

Manchester Film Festival runs, across the city, until March 29. Psychopomp is currently on the festival circuit with no wide streaming release announced yet.

Photo: Jay Darcy @ JaDar