Casey Affleck said at the 2026 Venice International Film Festival that both of his parents died earlier this year. He made the disclosure during a press conference for Company, where he said the film is dedicated to them and that he wanted to show it to his parents but did not get the chance.
Company at Venice
“It’s dedicated to my parents because I lost both my mom and my dad this year, and they were very important to me,” he said during the press conference. He added, “I really wanted to show this movie to them, and I didn’t get to.”
The comments put a private loss directly into the public frame around Company. Affleck is the film’s actor, director and co-writer, and he said his sons Indiana Affleck and Atticus Affleck appear in it. That gives the project an immediate family context that is hard to separate from the dedication now attached to it.
Timothy Byers Affleck
Timothy Byers Affleck died earlier this year. Ben Affleck said in February 2020 that his father had 30 years of sobriety, and that history sits alongside the older account of a man who worked as a janitor, auto mechanic and bartender and later devoted his life to recovery after battling alcoholism.
Ben Affleck also said in September 2000 that the most enduring lesson from his father was that it is possible to change your life and patterns. That line now reads less like a quotation than a family ledger entry: the father whose son once pointed to change as the lesson is gone, and his loss now sits beside the earlier death of Christopher Anne Affleck in June at age 83 after a six-month battle with pancreatic cancer.
Christopher Anne Affleck in June
Christopher Anne Affleck died in June, and Casey Affleck said he lost both parents this year. The family had already said its parents divorced around 1984, which helps explain why this public moment landed as a full accounting rather than a passing remark.
For readers following Company, the practical takeaway is simple: the film now carries an explicit dedication tied to both parents, and Affleck has said he hoped to share it with them. That makes the press conference less about promotion than about where the project came from, and what it now means to the person who made it.
