The Occupant cast and character guide: Who plays whom in the upcoming mystery sci-fi film? 

In The Occupant, survival is just the surface, the real story is buried somewhere deeper, in grief, guilt, and the illusions we build to avoid letting go. Hugo Keijzer’s feature debut opens in a frozen, fractured world and only gets colder from there. Surrounded by voices, some real, some not, our protagonist sets off on a journey through treacherous terrain and internal collapse.

With a tight ensemble of grounded performances and quietly devastating roles, The Occupant asks a pretty large question: What happens when you're stranded inside yourself?

Here’s a closer look at the cast, and the characters of the thriller film, and where you must have seen them before.

Cast and character guide for The Occupant

Ella Balinska as Abby Brennan

Ella Balinska plays the protagonist Abby Brennan, a geologist whose brain runs on data, but whose heart is frozen in denial. Still clinging to the impossible idea that her sister can be saved, Abby signs up for a mission that’s less about discovery and more about delusion. What follows is isolation in every sense, emotional, physical, existential. Balinska has previously had roles in Charlie's Angels and the Netflix original series Resident Evil.

Vanessa Ifediora as Beth Brennan

Vanessa Ifediora plays Beth Brennan, the absent presence at the heart of The Occupant. Though she’s never truly there, her sickness constitutes of the film 's primal plot, especially for her sister Abby. Beth becomes a symbol, of loss, of memory, of the unknowable. Ifediora has previously had roles in projects like A Haunting in Venice, Royal Rendezvous, Bloodlands, Derry Girls, Foundation and Belfast.

Supporting characters in The Occupant

Apart from Ella Balinska and Vanessa Ifediora, The Occupant also has supporting characters, with unspecified roles.

Stuart Graham as Archie Brennan, their father

Sheena Kelly as Beth's nurse

Armin Karima as Hardy

George Lasha as Tamaz

Konstantine Roinishvili as Sergi

Rob Delaney (voice) as John, another stranded pilot.

More details about The Occupant

The Occupant follows Abby Brennan, a British geologist who’s desperate to save her terminally ill sister. With no money and no time, she takes a risky job hunting uranium near the Russian border of Georgia. When her helicopter crashes in the icy wilderness of South Ossetia, Abby’s survival depends on a broken radio, and the voice of John, an American pilot who’s also gone down nearby. He’s calm, he’s kind but he might not be real.

What begins as a rescue mission becomes a reckoning, as Abby’s past grief bleeds into her present hallucinations, and survival turns into surrender.

Director Hugo Keijzer’s debut is a psychological survival tale where sci-fi, myth, and raw emotion collide. The Occupant poses the question of what we refuse to see when the truth is too much. This is one woman versus the wilderness. Versus her mind. Versus the unbearable possibility that there’s no one left to save.

The Occupant will be in select theaters on August 8.