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Poorna Jagannathan is known for multiple powerful performances, and one of them was in HBO’s The Night Of. Now, she is stepping back into the world of suspense and crime, but this time for Apple TV+. The famous Indian-American actor has joined the cast of Joona Linna. It is a gripping psychological thriller show adapted from the bestselling crime novels by Lars Kepler.

In the 10-episode thriller, Jagannathan will portray Quinn, an experienced FBI agent from Washington, D.C, whose arrival in a Pennsylvania town will shake up a complex investigation. The show will follow Jonah Lynn, portrayed by Liev Schreiber, who is looking for peace after years of working as a detective in Philadelphia.

But tranquility for this ex-soldier proves elusive when a serial killer named Jurek Walter targets his family. As the hunt begins, Quinn will have to work with Jonah to navigate the small community while confronting her demons.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has invited hundreds of artists and executives to join the organization!

Wicked star Ariana Grande, Dune‘s Jason Momoa and girlfriend, Hit Man star Adria Arjona, Superman‘s Rachel Brosnahan and Anora breakout Mikey Madison are among the actors who have “distinguished themselves by their contributions to motion pictures.”

“We are thrilled to invite this esteemed class of artists, technologists, and professionals to join the Academy,” Academy CEO Bill Kramer and Academy President Janet Yang shared in a statement. “Through their commitment to filmmaking and to the greater movie industry, these exceptionally talented individuals have made indelible contributions to our global filmmaking community.”

Keep reading to see the full list of invitees…

According to the Academy website, “Membership selection is based on professional qualifications, with an ongoing commitment to representation, inclusion and equity remaining a priority. Of the 2025 invited class, 41% are women,...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has extended invitations to join the organization to a new class of filmmakers. Over 500 artists and executives who have distinguished themselves by their contributions to motion pictures are now welcome to join one of the Academy’s 19 branches.

“We are thrilled to invite this esteemed class of artists, technologists, and professionals to join the Academy,” said Academy CEO Bill Kramer and Academy President Janet Yang via statement. “Through their commitment to filmmaking and to the greater movie industry, these exceptionally talented individuals have made indelible contributions to our global filmmaking community.”

The list of new invitees includes several of the cast and crew of “Anora,” including Best Actress winner Mikey Madison, Best Picture winners Alex Coco and Samantha Quan, and Best Supporting Actor nominee Yura Borisov. Other 2025 Oscar winners like “A Real Pain” star Kieran Culkin, “No Other Land” directors Yuval Abraham,...

2025 Academy Award winners Mikey Madison, Kieran Culkin and Lol Crawley and nominees Ariana Grande, Sebastian Stan and Brandi Carlile have been invited to become members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, as have other notables including incumbent Oscars host Conan O’Brien, his predecessor Jimmy Kimmel and their respective producers; top executives Tom Quinn of Neon, Jason Ropell of Mubi, Ravi Ahuja of Sony and Shannon Ryan of Disney; plus WME president Ari Greenburg, entertainment lawyer Nina Shaw and Christian Hodell, managing partner of the leading U.K. talent agency Hamilton Hodell.

The list of 534 invitees, released Thursday morning by the Academy, is the largest one issued since 2020, the last year of a half-decade stretch in which the organization recruited huge classes of unprecedented diversity, ranging in size from 683 to a record 928, as part of its response to the #OscarsSoWhite controversy of 2015 and 2016. Subsequent classes were smaller: 395 in...

Oscar has its new voters.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences handed out its annual invitations to membership today, with 534 new invitees. If all of them accept, the new overall membership would be 11,120, of which 10,143 would be eligible to vote for Oscars and run for governance elections.

Among those on the list are newly minted Oscar winners Mikey Madison (Best Actress for Anora) and Kieran Culkin. Among all the invitees this year 91 are past Oscar nominees including 26 winners. The prominent star names include Ariana Grande, Dave Bautista, Jodie Comer, Jason Momoa, Aubrey Plaza, Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong, Gillian Anderson, Stephen Graham, Andrew Scott, Danielle Deadwyler, and on and on.

The Academy said 41% of the new class are women, 45% belong to underrepresented communities and 55% are from 60 countries and territories outside the United States. If all accept, it would result in an overall AMPAS membership of 35% women,...

Iranian filmmaker Saeed Roustaee used the Cannes spotlight last week to warn that he may face renewed reprisals at home after screening his new drama “Woman and Child,” even though the production was vetted by Tehran’s culture ministry and keeps all female characters in hijab.

At a Cannes press conference on 22 May, Roustaee said, “The last time I went back, my passport was confiscated. I hope I’ll be able to go back safely,” referencing a six-month suspended sentence handed down by a Tehran revolutionary court in August 2023 for screening “Leila’s Brothers” without state approval, an offence that also imposed a five-year filmmaking ban.

The new film, starring Parinaz Izadyar and Payman Maadi, follows a widowed nurse whose remarriage triggers a family tragedy; it is one of 22 titles in this year’s Palme d’Or race and one of two Iranian works, the other being Jafar Panahi’s “It Was Just an Accident.

With four features under his belt, three of them ambitious and sprawling ensemble pieces, 35-year-old Iranian wunderkind Saeed Roustaee is the kind of director who takes a big swing for the fences with each new film. His 2019 drug thriller, Just 6.5, was like The French Connection meets The Wire in contemporary Iran. His 2022 family epic, Leila’s Brothers — which, like his new film, premiered in competition in Cannes — had hints of both The Godfather and the searing social dramas of Asghar Farhadi, with some of the best acting in any movie that year.

Roustaee attempts another big swing with Mother and Child, a grandiose modern melodrama filled with love, death, heartache, anger, jealousy, vengeance and possible murder. It’s a lot to take in, and not all of it works despite some more great performances, including from regular leading man Payman Maadi (also an early Farhadi regular in About Elly and...

Bi Gan’s Resurrection received a mix of scores on Screen International’s Cannes Jury Grid, for an overall average of 2.4.

The science fiction detective film, divided into six chapters and starring Jackson Yee and Shu Qi, earned two four-stars (excellent), from Positif’s Nt Binh and The New Yorker’s Justin Chang, as well as four three-stars (good). However, four two-stars (average), a one (poor) and a zero (bad) from Filfan.com’s Ahmed Shawky saw it end up mid-table on the grid.

Click on the image above for the most up-to-date version of the grid.

The film is...

Iranian filmmaker Saeed Roustaee (also spelled Saeed Roustayi – I know its annoying) became part of the Cannes family when he gave us the competition title Leila’s Brothers back in 2022 (read ★★ review). For his fourth feature film, we find him re-teaming with Payman Maadi and Parinaz Izadyar toplines as a mother in distress and with a bit of fight in her step. This follows a 45-year-old widowed nurse named Mahnaz who is raising her children alone and struggling with her rebellious son. As she prepares to marry her fiancé, Hamid, her son Aliyar is expelled from school. When a tragic accident turns everything upside down, Mahnaz sets out to seek justice and reparation.…...

They say that when one door closes, another door opens. This very much applies to Iranian cinema, and the one-in, one-out approach that the country’s government seems to take when imprisoning its filmmakers. Like the recently released Jafar Panahi, Woman and Child director Saeed Roustaee fell afoul of the authorities in 2023 for having the temerity to submit his last film, Leila’s Brothers, to Cannes without making the necessary changes to please the Ministry of Culture. He was sentenced to nine days in jail, but his new film suggests that the experience has by no means dampened the fire in his filmmaking.

Woman and Child arrives in Cannes at the end of a very satisfying festival, and it could well be an awards contender, being a very satisfying female-fronted drama about a middle-aged widow struggling to raise two children in modern-day Tehran. That woman is Mahnaz (Parinaz Izadyar), who works double shifts as a nurse,...

Iranian filmmaker Saeed Roustaee had the afternoon competition slot at the Cannes Film festival for his latest movie Woman and Child, which got an 10-minute ovation after it screened Thursday.

Roustaee and star Parinaz Izadyar were among those in attendance for the premiere.

A 10 minute standing ovation for Iranian director Saeed Roustayee’s ‘Woman and Child’ starring Parinaz Izadyar | #Cannes2025 pic.twitter.com/OInN67B9mv

— Deadline (@Deadline) May 22, 2025

The story follows Mahnaz (Parinaz Izadyar), a 40-year-old widowed nurse who is about to re-marry; she is also struggling with her rebellious son, Aliyar (Sinan Mohebi), who has been suspended from school. Family tensions reach a peak during a betrothal ceremony with her intended Hamid (Payman Maadi), and a tragic accident occurs. In the aftermath, Mahnaz will be forced to confront betrayal and loss, and to embark on a quest for justice.

Roustaee has previously said that Mahnaz’s character “screamed...

One of the thrills of watching what we once called “foreign” films is discovering a movie from an entirely different culture and realizing just how similar we all are: Our dreams aren’t so different, nor the things that make us laugh or cry. But there’s always the risk of having the opposite experience, bumping up against a story where nothing corresponds and the behavior seems so illogical or inexplicable that we may as well be watching science fiction. Iranian director Saeed Roustaee’s “Woman and Child” strikes me that way, despite the fact it takes place in a modern metropolis and hails from a director with the most Hollywood touch of his compatriots.

Returning to Cannes after being censured for his 2022 film “Leila’s Brothers,” Roustaee seems undeterred by the six-month prison sentence and since-lifted filmmaking ban the regime imposed on him. No surprise, Iranian authorities don’t take...

Most of us don’t appreciate where our problems sit on a scale from ordinary to tragic. One day your frustrations relate to impressing the family of your intended husband, or to the local school’s struggles to contain your tearaway son. The next day, there are no footholds for this conventional social anxiety because the bottom has fallen out of your world.

Selling a descent from stress into a state of devastation that can never be shed (only briefly reprised) is the formidable actress Parinaz Izadyar. Remarkably, considering how often she is tasked to cry or yell, there is nothing repetitive to her performance. She keeps reacting to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune with fresh volatility, not letting her character, Mahnaz, become passive or automated.

Returning to the Cannes competition lineup after 2022’s “Leila’s Brothers” Iranian melodramatist, Saeed Roustayi, proves that he has an Almodovarian flair for...

Those looking for the 411 on Crime 101are in luck, as Chris Hemsworth and Halle Berry's upcoming heist thriller has stolen a high-profile date in Amazon MGM Studios' theatrical release calendar. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Crime 101, based on the crime novella of the same name by author Don Winslow, will open in theaters on Feb. 13, 2026, just in time for Valentine's Day, because who needs flowers when you have an Avenger in action outside the MCU? It also coincides with the beginning of Presidents' Day weekend.

The studio behind Crime 101 has reportedly committed to Feb. 13, 2026, despite it being the same day that Emerald Fennell's controversial Wuthering Heights' adaptation opens in theaters, and a highly curious untitled MCU Phase 6 movie. This release date takes advantage of the long holiday weekend that often presents moviegoers with free time to visit the theater. The addition of Crime 101 to the...

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Sharp Objects is a psychological mystery thriller drama series created by Marti Noxon. Based on the 2006 novel of the same name by Gillian Flynn, the HBO series follows Camille Preaker, an emotionally troubled investigative reporter who just got out of a psychiatric hospital. Camille travels to her hometown of Wind Gap, Missouri, to investigate the murder of two young girls, but she soon finds herself confronting her own childhood trauma. Sharp Objects stars Amy Adams, Patricia Clarkson, Chris Messina, Eliza Scanlen, Matt Craven, Henry Czerny, Taylor John Smith, Madison Davenport, and Sydney Sweeney. So, if you loved the intense psychological story, thrilling mystery, and compelling characters in Sharp Objects, here are some similar shows you should check out next.

Top of the Lake (Hulu & Rent on Prime Video) Credit – BBC Two

Top of the Lake is a mystery...

Exclusive: Goodfellas has unveiled one of its biggest European Film Market slates ever featuring upcoming films by Cristian Mungiu, Rodrigo Sorogoyen, Saeed Roustaee, Claire Denis, Mario Martone and Raoul Peck.

The company is also handling a trio of Berlin Film Festival titles: Lucile Hadžihalilović’s Golden Bear contender The Ice Tower with Marion Cotillard; Burhan Qurbani’s No Beast. So Fierce. in Berlinale Special; and a fresh acquisition, Bálint Dániel Sós’ Growing Down.

The latter film, which premieres in the new competitive Perspectives section aimed at first films, revolves around a widowed father of two who is tested by fate when he becomes the only witness of a serious accident involving his stepdaughter caused by his youngest son.

Goodfellas will begin pre-sales on Romanian director Mungiu’s first English-language picture Fjord, with Oscar nominee Sebastian Stan (The Apprentice) and Cannes Best Actress winner Renate Reinsve (The Worst Person in the World...

Amazon Studios’ feature film “Crime 101” is rounding out its cast.

Jennifer Jason Leigh, Nick Nolte, Tate Donovan, Babak Tafti, Payman Maadi, Deborah Hedwall, Devon Bostick, Paul Adelstein, Drew Powell and Matthew Del Negro have boarded the upcoming crime thriller, which will be released in theaters.

They join previously announced cast members Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Barry Keoghan, Monica Barbaro, Corey Hawkins and Halle Berry. Bart Layton wrote the script, which is based on a novella by Don Winslow, and will direct.

Per the logline, Winslow’s original story follows a series of high level jewelry thefts up and down the Pacific Coast Highway that have gone unsolved for years, mostly because the perpetrator has lived by a strict code he calls ‘Crime 101.’ Police attribute the thefts to the Colombian cartels, but Detective Lou Lubesnick’s gut says it’s the work of just one man. Now the lone-wolf jewel...

If you have been a fan of David E. Kelley‘s legal dramas, then there is no chance you missed his latest Apple TV+ series, Presumed Innocent, starring Jake Gyllenhaal in the lead role. Based on the 1987 novel of the same name by author Scott Turow, Presumed Innocent follows the story of a Chicago city prosecutor whose life turns upside down when he is accused of murdering a colleague he has been having an affair with. Presumed Innocent also stars Ruth Negga, Bill Camp, O-t Fagbenle, Chase Infiniti, Nana Mensah, Renate Reinsve, and Peter Sarsgaard. So, if you loved the courtroom and family drama in Presumed Innocent, here are some similar shows for you to watch next.

Anatomy of a Scandal (Netflix) Credit – Netflix

Anatomy of a Scandal is a political and legal thriller drama miniseries created by David E. Kelley and Melissa James Gibson. Based on the 2018 novel of...

Opponent

Iranian-born writer/director Milad Alami’s sophomore feature, Opponent, centres on Iman (Payman Maadi), an Iranian refugee who has arrived in Northern Sweden with his family and hopes to be granted asylum. As a former Olympic wrestler, it’s suggested that he competes for Sweden to support his asylum request. The decision not only brings him into conflict with his family, but creates internal and external conflicts.

In conversation with Eye For Film, Alami discussed cinema’s lack of an inner life, how he used the stories of immigrants to grow the story, and his desire to create an elusive protagonist.

Paul Risker: Do you consider storytellers to be naturally curious about human nature and what makes people tick?

Opponent

Milad Alami: Definitely! With filmmaking you have to be a sponge and the fun part is trying to understand those difficult things. I think it was [Andrei] Tarkovsky who said if you want to.

Payman Maadi brings a fierce intelligence to his portrayal of a refugee seeking a secure new home for his family in Sweden

Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher from 2015 and Sean Durkin’s recent The Iron Claw show the sport of wrestling as deeply dysfunctional; wrestling fans might wonder if their favourite pastime is ever going to be depicted in the movies as vital and dramatic, like football, or even tragically noble and masculine, like boxing. Well … not in this film.

Motståndaran, or Opponent, is a tense, complex drama from Iranian-born and Denmark-based director Milad Alami, drawing on some of his own experiences as a refugee in northern Sweden. Payman Maadi (from Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation) plays Imam, a grizzled Iranian wrestling champ seeking asylum in Sweden with his pregnant wife Maryam (Marall Nasiri) and their two young daughters. He and his family left behind a good, prosperous life in Tehran,...

There’s a lone wolf out there in the mountains, somewhere near the Finnish border. In an early scene we see him walking through the snow, faint brown stains in the fur around his mouth evidence of a recent kill. From the hotel car park where the asylum seekers gather, we can hear him howl. Somebody will hunt him down and kill him soon, Iman (Payman Maadi) is told.

In the interviews the state interrogators ask “Why don’t you want to go back to your own country?” and, of course, most asylum seekers want that very much. Iman and his wife, Maryam (Marall Nasiri), are exhausted by being moved around, asked now to shift their belongings into yet another room to make way for a fresh wave of displaced people. They have two daughters and a new baby on the way. Iman is trying to make a bit of money by delivering.

The Swedish Film Institute on Wednesday announced the nominations for the Guldbagge (Golden Bug) awards, Sweden’s top film prize, with politics taking center stage among the feature contenders.

Axel Petersén’s Shame on Dry Land, a neo-noir set in the world of online gamblers who fled Sweden for refuge in Malta, lead the pack with 9 Guldbagge nominations. But it was snubbed in the best film category. Per Fly’s cold war thriller Hammarskjöld, starring Mikael Persbrandt as the titular Swedish diplomat, and former Un Secretary-General, who died in a mysterious plane crash, received seven nominations, including best film, tying with Opponent, Milad Alami’s drama about a family who flee Iran for Northern Sweden.

Alongside Hammarskjöld and Opponent, best film nominees include Mika Gustafson’s social drama Paris Is Burning, the relationship drama 100 Seasons from director Giovanni Bucchieri, and The Gullspång Miracle, a documentary from director Maria Fredriksson about...

Screen is profiling every submission for best international feature at the 96th Academy Awards.

Entries for the 2024 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 96th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 10, 2024 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between December 1, 2022, and October 31, 2023. The deadline...

Screen is profiling every submission for best international feature at the 96th Academy Awards.

Entries for the 2024 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 96th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 10, 2024 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between December 1, 2022, and October 31, 2023. The deadline...

Screen is profiling every submission for best international feature at the 96th Academy Awards.

Entries for the 2024 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 96th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 10, 2024 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between December 1, 2022, and October 31, 2023. The deadline...

Payman Maadi as time-travel inventor Jabir in the sci-fi drama Aporia. Courtesy of WellGoUSA

Time-travel tales always raise logical questions about inconsistencies and effects. One of the tropes is that everything will go kablooey if your time-traveling self meets the prior one. Another is the warning to minimize interactions with those of yore to avoid collateral influences that will change their future and your present, as in the “Butterfly Effect.” Generally, films using this premise minimize our mental gymnastics by filling the screen with so much action that we don’t have time to think about the science what-ifs. The Terminator franchise exemplifies the distraction factor. The title’s definition is of internal contradictions or a logical impasse.

Aporia tries a different approach to avoid the first problem in this drama. A guy named Jabir (Payman Maadi) builds a time machine that’s not strong enough to send a person...

Since losing her husband Mal (Edi Gathegi) in a drunk-driving incident, Sophie (Judy Greer) has struggled to manage crippling grief, a full-time job, and the demands of parenting her devastated teenage daughter (Faithe Herman). When her husband’s best friend Jabir (Payman Maadi), a former physicist, reveals that he has been building a time-bending machine that could restore her former life, Sophie will be faced with an impossible choice—and unforeseeable consequences.

Aporia is available on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital on September 12.

Enter for your chance to win a Blu-ray of Aporia, courtesy of Well Go USA. Five (5) winners will be selected at random.

Here’s how to enter:

Step 1: Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Step 2: Tweet this message:

I want to win a Blu-ray of #Aporia (@wellgousa) from @Slant_Magazine. https://www.slantmagazine.com/giveaways/aporia-blu-ray-giveaway/ #SlantGiveaway

Note: One entry per person/email address/Twitter handle.

Aporia is a time travel film that focuses on the drama and emotions of its characters, rather than the sci-fi elements. Judy Greer delivers an excellent dramatic performance in Aporia, stepping out of her comedic comfort zone. The film understands its limitations and delivers a sensible and well-executed story, without relying on flashy visuals or gimmicks.

Editor's note: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movie being covered here wouldn't exist.

Writer-director Jared Moshe’s third feature is his first that is not a Western. For Aporia, he turns to the world of time travel and family tragedy. The film boasts some of Judy Greer’s best dramatic work to date and familiar faces like Edi Gathegi help to solidify the film's supporting cast. There are many time travel films with similar plots,...

Stars: Judy Greer, Edi Gathegi, Payman Maadi, Faithe Herman, Whitney Morgan Cox, Veda Cienfuegos | Written and Directed by Jared Moshé

Aporia is the second film I have watched in the last few weeks which has kind of tackled time travel but not been what most people would call a time travel movie. And that’s no bad thing. The first movie was the beautiful anime The Tunnel to Summer, the Exit of Goodbyes. It was an excellent and interesting new take on time travel, and you can read my review for Nerdly here.

Aporia might feel a little bit more familiar – it has a slightly different take on The Butterfly Effect but it might just be as beautiful as the animated movie I have just mentioned.

The always reliable Judy Greer plays Sophie. A mother who since losing her husband (and father of their child) has struggled to be a good parent,...

Judy Greer’s iconic career has spanned from “13 Going on 30” to the revamped “Halloween” franchise, proving the actress can delicately balance comedy, horror, and even a certain flavor of signature detachment onscreen. Yet, somehow, the time travel logic of 2004’s comedy “13 Going on 30” makes more sense than the kind at hand in “Aporia,” the latest Greer vehicle that attempts to marry scraps from Greer’s recent haunting performance as a grieving mother in recent festival premiere “Eric Larue” and repurposes her masterful tears into a bland sci-fi drama that asks too many unanswered questions about morality, mortality, and the price of happiness.

Greer stars in the film as Sophie, a widowed single mother who lost her scientist husband Malcolm (Edi Gathegi) in a drunk driving accident. She is left to care for their 11-year-old daughter Riley (“This Is Us” alum Faithe Herman), with the pre-teen acting...

If one of your loved ones suddenly passed away in an accident, what would you do? The arts, cinema, and literature have been exploring themes of grief and how it manifests for different individuals for centuries now, showing that it can appear in so many different ways, whether it’s through coping mechanisms or simply cultural differences and mindsets. The core emotion is the same across the world, which is why audiences have continuously enjoyed entertainment that have dwelled on the subject on what it means to go through and get through a loss, especially if it’s a recent one. Fresh from Fantasia 2023, Aporia is another addition to this specific genre of movies, although with a twist.

Director and screenwriter Jared Moshe filmed Aporia during the Covid-19 pandemic, and the film is now finding its way into theaters in August 2023. Moshe has been known for his Western movies like...

Aporia offers a refreshing twist on the time travel formula, centered on a grieving widow faced with the choice of bringing her husband back. The movie showcases powerful performances from the cast, including Judy Greer in her best role yet, bringing a grounded approach to the story. The director aimed to establish simple rules for the time travel concept, avoiding excessive complications and allowing the story to flow naturally.

The time travel formula gets a refreshingly new and powerful twist with Aporia. The drama centers on grieving widow Sophie, whose husband's best friend reveals a time machine that can kill someone in the past. Thus she is faced with the impossible choice of whether to bring her husband back and the consequences to come from the choice.

Judy Greer leads the cast of Aporia alongside The Night Of star Payman Maadi, For All Mankind's Edi Gathegi, and Shazam: Fury of the Gods' Faithe Herman.

Aporia Photo: courtesy of WellGoUSA

A smart independent science fiction film with a fresh approach to meddling with time, Jared Moshé’s Aporia didn’t have the glamour of some of this year’s other Fantasia films, but stood out nonetheless because of its combination of a clever plot and sensitive, finely tuned performances. It focuses on a bereaved mother, Sophie (played by Judy Greer), who gets a new lease on life when her old friend Jabir (Payman Maadi) reveals a machine which he and her deceased husband Mal (Edi Gathegi) were working on prior to the fatal car crash. With it, she could change what happened to him – at the cost of another man’s life. Though she struggles at first, it’s not a difficult decision – but what happens afterwards opens up a much more complex narrative about grief and the importance of learning to live with vulnerability.

Normally at the top of these Don’t-Miss Indies round-ups, we like to make a little joke that’s somewhat topical. But if you’ve been paying attention to what’s been going on in Hollywood for the past couple of months, you’ll know that the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes are no laughing matter (unless we’re talking about the writers’ signs.) In fact, right at press time not one but two of this months featured titles have been pushed, due to strike-related issues.

And while our blog deadlines being imperiled by the inhuman machinery of Late Capitalism is certainly a headache, our real concern is the wellbeing of our filmmaking community during this lean, labor-conscious strike period. Please consider donating to artist support funds like this or this.

Shortcomings

When You Can Watch: August 4

Where You Can Watch: Theaters

Director: Randall Park

Cast: Justin H. Min,...

It’s become increasingly common to lend genre films some semblance of emotional depth by having their protagonists burdened from the start with profound grief or loss. That is especially the case with “Aporia,” producer Jared Moshe’s third feature as writer-director. Its variation on a particular kind of fantasy premise (often involving time travel) underlines the familiar wisdom of “Be careful what you wish for,” as the ability to alter tragic past events only ends up complicating the present for our main characters.

Starring Judy Greer as a recent widow in a lower-middle-class Los Angeles milieu, this is more an effective drama with a novel hook than any typically violence- or spectacle-driven dive into the fantastic— the lo-fi sci-fi on tap here requires nary a special effect. Those expecting more action or thrills may be underwhelmed. But “Aporia” (the title of which is a term for a state of...

Big concept science fiction too often neglects the human side, which is a problem, because by and large it’s humans who determine how science is used. This smart independent feature by Jared Moshé, which screened as part of Fantasia 2023, is all about human experience and the deep needs which drive our engagement with technology, its development and its destructive potential.

At the heart of it is Sophie (Judy Greer), who is at rock bottom when we first encounter her. Six months ago she lost her husband Mal (Edi Gathegi). Her devastated daughter Riley (Faithe Herman) wants nothing to do with her. She’s struggling to cope at work and everyone is running out of sympathy – everyone, that is, except for her friend Jabir (Payman Maadi). He has been there throughout to bail her out of trouble. In the process they have built up the kind of trust which makes.

What would your life be like if you didn’t go to work the day an accident would otherwise change everything? How much of your future might shift if you decide to simply alter your schedules to better accommodate picking up your child from school? One question seems bigger than the other, yet the second may actually impact what occurs next more. Because you can’t know for certain. And there aren’t any do-overs. Perhaps it’s better that way, to accept and move on rather than risk an even worse fate. Or is it?

That’s what writer-director Jared Moshé seeks to contemplate with his grounded science fiction drama Aporia. In it exists a woman named Sophie (Judy Greer) who has recently watched her life fall apart. Her husband Mal (Edi Gathegi) was the victim of a drunk-driving collision eight months prior, and the void left has all but shattered their family.

Forget Westerns: “The Ballad of Lefty Brown” director Jared Moshé is going on a whole different journey.

In “Aporia,” which world premieres at Fantasia, Sophie (Judy Greer) is trying to keep things together after her Mal husband is killed in a drunk-driving accident. Struggling to comfort teenage daughter, she makes a shocking discovery: his friend, a former physicist, has managed to build a mysterious machine.

Edi Gathegi, Faithe Herman and Payman Maadi also star.

“I like to call it a time-traveling movie that never goes back in time,” Moshé tells Variety.

“I had this idea: What if there was a gun you could shoot into the past? I didn’t want to, say, kill baby Hitler and change the entire world, but show a character who wants to regain control of her life.”

“I started writing this when I became a father. I was getting ‘The Ballad’ off the ground,...

"We have this power, why shouldn't we use it?" "It's too risky." Well Go USA has revealed an official trailer for Aporia, an indie sci-fi thriller from filmmaker Jared Moshe. It's premiering soon at the 2023 Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal, which is why this trailer is dropping now. Opening in August to watch just after. Since losing her husband, Sophie has struggled to manage her grief, her job, and parenting her devastated daughter, but when a former physicist reveals a secret time-bending machine, Sophie will be faced with an impossible choice. He offers her a chance to restore her previous life, but of course, this kind of attempt to change history always comes with other dangerous consequences. Judy Greer stars with Payman Maadi, plus Edi Gathegi, Faithe Herman, Whitney Morgan Cox, and Rachel Paulson. It all seems familiar, rehashing the same "you can't change the past" story in so many other time machine movies.

Grief is a complicated emotion. People say that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, but what if you can go back and change the past? In today’s Aporia trailer, Judy Greer plays a mother devastated by loss who alters time and space to change the course of history. However, manipulating the laws of time is dangerous, and the results could be worse than the event you hoped to change.

In the Aporia trailer, Greer’s Sophie learns about a secret time machine built by her husband’s best friend, played by Payman Maadi. Sophie thinks she can bring her husband back after he dies in a tragic drunk-driving accident, but the consequences of her actions could lead to losing her teenage daughter or worse.

Jared Moshe directs from his own script, with Greer, Edi Gathegi, Payman Maadi, and Faithe Herman starring as the main cast.

In Moshe’s Aporia trailer,...

The chance to undo a tragedy leads to time-bending sci-fi thrills in Aporia, and a new trailer unveiled today gives a glimpse of the emotional stakes and haunting morality choices made.

Aporia stars Judy Greer as a widow grappling with impossible choices when presented with a time machine.

The dramatic sci-fi thriller will make its world premiere at Fantasia Film Festival on July 27 ahead of the film’s August 11 US theatrical release from Well Go USA.

Aporia follows “Sophie (Greer), who since losing her husband Mal (Gathegi) in a drunk-driving accident, has struggled to manage crippling grief, a full-time job, and the demands of parenting her devastated teenage daughter (Herman). When her husband’s best friend (Maadi), a former physicist, reveals he has been building a time-bending machine that could restore her former life, Sophie will be faced with an impossible choice — and unforeseeable consequences, posing the question ‘If you...

Would you change the past? It’s a difficult question that one woman faces in “Aporia.” The film sees a widow confront a new form of technology, soon learning that every revelation comes with a high price. “Aporia” offers an inspection of humanity’s complex relationship with emotions while also addressing an infatuation with innovation. The project hails from writer and director Jared Moshé — he last did double duty on 2017’s Western drama “The Ballad of Lefty Brown.”

Read More: Summer 2023 Movie Preview: 52 Must-See Films To Watch

Judy Greer stars as the widow given an uneasy choice; the role expands past her comedic work with “Reboot” and “Archer.” It’s also far from her first foray into genre work — appearing in 2018’s “Halloween” as well as its sequel “Halloween Kills.” She’s joined by a host of talents from various films and series, including “The Harder They Fall” star Edi Gathegi,...

‘Opponent’ debuted in Panorama at Berlinale.

MetFilm Distribution has acquired UK-Ireland rights to Milad Alami’s Opponent, which plays in the main Crystal Globe competition this week at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff).

The second feature from Iranian director Alami, Opponent follows a man who breaks a promise to his wife and joins a local wrestling club, after the family have fled Iran for northern Sweden.

The film debuted in Panorama at the 2023 Berlinale, going on to win a special jury prize in competition at Seattle International Film Festival in May.

A Separation star Payman Maadi plays the lead role,...

The winners of the 2023 Inside Out 2Slgbtq+ Film Festival Awards were announced this weekend in Toronto where $32,000 in prizes were handed out to various 2Slgbtq+ filmmakers. Top honours went to Juan Sebastián Torales’ Almamula (Best First Feature), Lulu Wei’s Supporting Our Selves (Best Canadian Feature), Beth Warrian’s Adore (Best Canadian Short), and Karimah Zakia Issa with Scaring Women At Night (Emerging Canadian Artist).

The Audience Award winners are Ally Pankiw’s I Used To Be Funny for Best Narrative Feature, Loveleen Kaur’s Leilani’s Fortune for Best Documentary Feature, and Zeppelin Zeerip’s Apayauq for Best Short Film.

The festival is also proud to announce director Judith Schuyler’s upcoming project There Is Light won the annual “Pitch, Please!” contest. The “Pitch, Please!” competition took place in person on June 3, 2023, with competitors from across the globe presenting a short, two-minute pitch to a jury and audience. Prizes...

Exclusive: Edi Gathegi (For All Mankind) has been tapped for a prominent role opposite Robert De Niro, Lizzy Caplan, Jesse Plemons, Joan Allen and Connie Britton in Netflix’s limited series Zero Day, the six-episode conspiracy thriller from creators Eric Newman, Noah Oppenheim and Michael S. Schmidt.

Gathegi will play Carl, an intense bureaucrat and loyalist of De Niro’s former U.S President George Mullen.

Falling under a deal between Netflix and Newman’s Grand Electric Productions, Zero Day asks the question, how do we find truth in a world in crisis, one seemingly being torn apart by forces outside our control? And in an era rife with conspiracy theory and subterfuge, how much of those forces are products of our own doing, perhaps even of our own imagining?

At the center of the narrative is De Niro’s Mullen, a popular but complicated figure who is yanked back...

The 27th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival is set to run from from July 20th through August 9th at the Concordia Hall Cinema in Montreal, with additional screens at the Cinémathèque québécoise and Cinéma du Musée – and today the festival announced the first wave of titles that will be screening there this year! The festival runners promise this edition of the show will deliver “a whiplashing program of screenings, workshops, and launch events”, with a spotlight on South Korean cinema, a Canadian trailblazer Award being presented to Larry Kent, and World Premiere screenings of new films from the likes of Larry Fessenden, Xavier Gens, Jenn Wexler, The Adams Family, and Victor Ginzburg. They’ll also be hosting the International Premieres of Tsutomu Hanabusa’s blockbusters Tokyo Revengers 2 – Part 1 & 2.

2023 marks 60 years of diplomatic relations between Canada and the Republic of Korea, so Fantasia is teaming up with the Korean...

Exclusive: Well Go USA Entertainment has acquired North American rights to Aporia, a previously unannounced sci-fi thriller from Armian Pictures starring Judy Greer (Halloween Kills), Edi Gathegi (The Harder They Fall), Payman Maadi (A Separation) and Faithe Herman (Shazam!). The film, written and directed by Jared Moshé (The Ballad of Lefty Brown), is slated for release in theaters in August. (Check out the first still from it above.)

Aporia follows Sophie (Greer), who since losing her husband Mal (Gathegi) in a drunk-driving accident, has struggled to manage crippling grief, a full-time job, and the demands of parenting her devastated teenage daughter (Herman). When her husband’s best friend (Maadi), a former physicist, reveals he and Mal had been building a time-bending machine that could restore her former life, Sophie will be faced with an impossible choice — and unforeseeable consequences.

The film is produced by Neda Armian (Rachel Getting Married) and...

EFM project ‘Maria Montessori’ has also sold robustly.

Paris-based Indie Sales has sold Belgian filmmaker Zeno Graton’s Berlinale Generation film The Lost Boys to Dark Star Pictures in the US, Pecadillo Pictures in the UK/Ireland and to the Filmin platform in Spain.

The film stars Khalil Gharbia alongside Julien de Saint Jean in a story of two young men attempting to keep their burgeoning relationship under wraps at a tough juvenile detention centre. The Lost Boys is produced by France’s Silex Films and Belgium’s Tarantula and will be released in Belgium by O’Brother and in...

Saeed Roustayi’s tense policier about a cop hunting a drug kingpin deftly mixes brutality and gallows farce

This increasingly nerve-jangling narco policier from Life and a Day writer-director Saeed Roustayi, who has since made the feted 2022 Palme d’Or contender Leila’s Brothers, was hailed as Iran’s highest-grossing non-comedic domestic film. Not that Law of Tehran (Aka Just 6.5), which won the audience award at Iran’s Fajr film festival back in 2019, is without a pointedly nihilistic streak of jet-black humour. For proof, check out the horrifyingly absurdist opening salvo: a drug bust that turns into a breakneck, on-foot chase sequence, climaxing in a lethal disappearing act that combines the vérité grit of The French Connection with the physical slapstick of Buster Keaton. Really. It’s a deliberately bewildering cocktail of brutal tragedy and gallows farce that runs throughout this very arresting feature.

Playing out amid the human...

It’s striking how often the word “removal” comes up in various governments’ official policies regarding refugees and asylum seekers — a pointedly chosen term that conjures images of inanimate refuse or clutter awaiting collection, rather than human lives in desperate limbo. Fail to make your case to officials and you’ll be “removed,” a near-literally dehumanizing threat that hangs over Milad Alami’s tense, bristling social thriller “Opponent” like a pounding migraine. Following an Iranian wrestler and father whose urgent reasons for fleeing his homeland aren’t entirely what he claims them to be, this is a tightly wound affair that unravels an obscured past and an uncertain future neatly in tandem. Alami maintains suspense at both ends of his narrative without making a blank cypher of his protagonist, played with seething specificity by an electrifying Payman Maadi.

That galvanizing lead performance — by an actor who hasn’t attained quite...