Ben and Rob disappear into the monkey suit and hit the dusty New Mexico road with Sunlight (2024), the feature directing debut of Nina Conti, co-written with and co-starring Shenoah Allen, with Bill Wise and Melissa Chambers rounding out the cast. What begins as a tale built around a familiar prop from Conti's ventriloquism act slowly unfolds into something far more layered; a conversation about a desperate, near-mythical journey from stage gimmick to fully realised film, a writing process built almost entirely on improvisation and trust between two performers, and a story that somehow uses a sweaty, full-body monkey costume to say something about grief, trauma, and the long road back to facing reality.

How does an act this strange and specific make the leap from comedy stage to feature film? When a script is built on improvisation rather t ...