‘Atropia’

By Anna Menta

Filmmaker Hailey Gates is valiantly keeping the noble art of satire alive with her 2025 feature film debut, Atropia, which first premiered at Sundance 2025, and is now available to stream on MUBI. Alia Shawkat (known for Search Party and Arrested Development) is hysterical as an aspiring actress, who treats her job at a military role-play training camp as her potential big break. She delves deep into her role as a civilian woman in a fictional Middle Eastern country known as Atropia, despite that that she’s really just there to help desensitize soldiers to violence abroad. Things get complicated when she develops real feelings for one of the trainees, played by Callum Turner. Atropia is biting, zany, and at times uneven, but promises a bright future for first-time feature director Hailey Gates.

Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection