Occurring between Jan. 23 and Feb. 2, the festival includes a selection of the top independent films produced over the past year. Films like “Opus,” “Atropia,” “Twinless,” “Lurker,” and so many more, ...

Click on the movie’s title to read our full take. Section: U.S. Dramatic Competition Director-screenwriter: Hailey Gates Cast: Alia Shawkat, Callum Turner, Chloë Sevigny, Tim Heidecker, Jane Levy ...

The foremost thespian working inside of Atropia is Fayruz (Alia Shawkat), a striving Serious Actor who ... Until the U.S. Government got in her way writer-director Hailey Gates had actually intended ...

Hailey Gates’ Atropia delivers a sharp, self-aware war satire that skewers Hollywood’s portrayal of the Middle East and U.S. militarism. Set in a California training ground designed to mimic Iraq, the ...

What to know: Alia Shawkat stars as an aspiring actress ... Things get wonky when she falls in love. Writer-director Hailey Gates told me on the red carpet that this movie is based on a real ...

That’s the unsexy truth at the heart of Hailey Gates’ bizarre and bloody ... some of our worst militaristic impulses post 9/11. Alia Shawkat is magnetic on-screen, playing an aspiring actress ...

Hailey Gates’ ambitious debut feature Atropia ... The committed performances of Alia Shawkat and Callum Turner plus the Sundance US Grand Jury prize should guarantee attention for an uneven ...

As I was writing this report from Sundance 2025, the festival announced the winner of its Grand Jury Prize in the U.S. Dramatic Competition: Hailey Gates’s Atropia ... actors are there to make some ...

There is a moment in Atropia, Hailey Gates’ bold and deeply unsettling feature debut, where an actress — played with biting precision by Alia Shawkat — wanders into what appears to be an ...

It is hard to believe that the world of facsimiles that Hailey Gates builds is not a ... the film follows overly ambitious actress Fayruz (Alia Shawkat) through her days in “The Box ...