Watch Xelia Mendes-Jones read from On Earth As It Is Beneath, the #InternationalBooker2026 shortlisted book written by Ana Paula Maia and translated by Padma Viswanathan. The story so far: On land where enslaved people were once tortured and murdered, the state built a penal colony in the wilderness, where inmates could be rehabilitated, but never escape. Now, decades later, and having only succeeded in trapping men, not changing them for the better, its operations are winding down. But in the prison’s waning days, a new horror is unleashed: every full-moon night, the inmates are released, the warden is armed with rifles, and the hunt begins. Directed by Holly Blakey, produced in partnership with Park Pictures and filmed at the Southbank Centre, London.