Casey Affleck’s 22-year-old son Indiana did not come to the Venice Film Festival simply to stand beside his father for a few photographs.
Indiana joined Casey on Sept. 8 for the Venice premiere of Company, the 92-minute gothic mystery Casey directed and co-wrote with Ron Hansen. Indiana appears in the film alongside his younger brother Atticus, 18, who did not attend the premiere, according to PEOPLE.
Ben Affleck also made the trip, posing with his younger brother and nephew during the evening. The premiere brought three members of the Affleck family onto the same Venice carpet for a movie that had become unusually personal well before anyone arrived in Italy.
Indiana stayed with the production after completing his acting work and helped wherever the small crew needed him, including shoveling snow and carrying lighting equipment. Casey said directing Indiana and Atticus ultimately became “the best professional experience of my life by far.”
Indiana Joined Casey and Uncle Ben on the Venice Carpet
Casey Affleck and Son Indiana, 22, Make Rare Red Carpet Appearance Together at Venice Film Festival https://t.co/5aNts441BM
— People (@people) September 9, 2026
Indiana appeared alongside Casey at both the Company photocall and the evening premiere during the 83rd Venice International Film Festival. Photos from the screening also showed him posing with Ben, who is not listed among the film’s cast but traveled to Venice to support his brother and nephew.
The festival group included Nick Nolte, Adelaide Clemens, Scoot McNairy, Emily Alyn Lind and Caylee Cowan. Atticus was absent from the premiere despite appearing in the movie as Caleb, a troubled young drifter at the center of one of its nested gothic stories.
The Venice Film Festival’s official listing includes both Indiana and Atticus in the main cast alongside Nolte, Ben Mendelsohn, Clemens, McNairy, Lind and Cowan. The main public screening took place at 9:45 p.m. at the Sala Grande on Sept. 8.
Indiana Stayed on Set and Worked in Other Departments
His older son stayed for the entire production and began helping in other departments whenever something needed to be done. “He showed up and he played this part and stayed every single day and worked in the other departments and shoveled snow and carried light stands around,” Casey said during the Venice press conference, according to a separate PEOPLE report.
Casey added one characteristically parental qualification, Indiana “never complained, or rarely complained.” Company is Indiana’s second feature-film acting credit. He previously played Denny in Amy Redford’s What Comes Around, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2022. Atticus makes his feature acting debut in Company.
The Brothers Got Their Roles During Read-Throughs at Home
Casey said casting his sons was not originally conceived as an elaborate family plan. He had hired casting director Avy Kaufman but was struggling to settle the movie’s younger roles, so Indiana and Atticus began reading those parts during repeated script sessions at home.
“I was sitting around the house doing read-throughs of this script over and over,” Casey recalled. He said his sons read the younger characters and were “fantastic,” eventually turning those informal sessions into something close to auditions.
The logistics then happened to work. Atticus was still in high school, but Casey said his son’s spring break gave the production roughly the week it needed him. Indiana had more availability and remained on the shoot much longer.
Casey also credited their upbringing with giving them an intuitive sense of how a film set operates. “I think they grew up around it and had some interest in it and a sort of innate understanding of what it was,” he said.
He connected that experience to his own childhood, noting that his father worked in theater. Casey described the interest in filmmaking as something that had, in a sense, passed from one generation of the family to another.
‘Company’ Became a Much Bigger Affleck Family Project
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Cowan, Casey’s longtime partner, plays the stranded actress whose story opens another layer of the film’s interlocking narrative. The family connection extends even further. Casey’s parents, Chris and Timothy Affleck, both appear in the movie. Casey revealed at Venice that both died in 2026 and said he dedicated Company to them.
“I really wanted to show this movie to them, and I didn’t get to,” Casey said during the festival press conference. “I think they would have liked it.”
That loss added another layer to a film Venice describes as a meditation on grief, vengeance, forgiveness and compassion. The story begins in 1975 with a mysterious woman arriving uninvited at a holiday gathering, then moves through interconnected stories including a 1953 Colorado blizzard and an earlier frontier tale.
Casey co-wrote the screenplay with Ron Hansen and directed the film, his third feature behind the camera after I’m Still Here and Light of My Life. Company is competing in Venice’s main Venezia 83 competition for the Golden Lion. The official awards will be presented on Sept. 12 by the competition jury chaired by Maggie Gyllenhaal.