Comparisons to Abbas Kiarostami and David Lynch set a excessive bar for filmmaker Alireza Khatami, an Iranian who now lives in Canada, and his masterful “The Issues You Kill” at Sundance. This unsettling thriller about impotent (emotionally, actually) college professor Ali (Turkish star Ekin Koç), on the trail to vengeance after the suspicious demise of his mom, scored robust evaluations (together with my very own) and the World Cinema Directing Award out of the Utah competition.
It now represents Canada within the 2026 Finest Worldwide Function race and is undoubtedly one of the vital formally daring works in international Oscar competition. What seems on its head as a social-realist drama within the vein of, say, Asghar Farhadi, takes a pointy hairpin flip within the second half, upending its personal premise when the professor confronts an enigmatic gardener who could also be an extension of himself, and his personal worst impulses. In the meantime, a key solid member is swapped to a destabilizing impact as Ali’s world comes crashing down.
Khatami, together with his second solo directing effort after collaborating with director Ali Asgari on “Terrestrial Verses” and this yr’s “Divine Comedy,” has made a movie so private that he’s been reluctant to indicate it to his circle of relatives. That the professor is called Ali, and the gardener Reza, tells you instantly what you should find out about a film directed by a person named Alireza by way of private intentions.
“One among my sisters went to a competition, with out telling me, to observe it, and that was emotional,” Khatami informed IndieWire over Zoom. “I begged her to not inform anyone else. If my household sees it, they may acknowledge the whole lot. Even the names [of Ali’s sisters] Nesrin and Meriam … [are the names] of two of my siblings. Anyone who sees this film who is aware of me on an intimate degree. The core of this film is one hundred pc based mostly on fact.”
In “The Issues You Kill,” Ali is consistently being challenged not solely by his geriatric wreck of a mom, but additionally his spouse, and his two sisters, crushing additional on him the burden of masculinity and father-son expectations inherent to Muslim custom. However did his father kill Ali’s mom?
“There may be this dialogue within the movie the place the spouse asks Ali, ‘Did your mother inform you bedside tales?’ And he says, ‘She didn’t like bedside tales. She favored puzzles.’ To me, this film is a few man’s narrative being challenged by a number of feminine narratives. His narrative has to regulate, has to interrupt down and be rebuilt, and get some factor of the female narrative within the course of,” Khatami mentioned.
That Ali is perhaps in pursuit of killing his father Hamit (Ercan Kesal), who has a historical past of home violence, scared off the Iranian censorship board. However not Khatami from making the movie, therefore the shift to manufacturing in Turkey.
“The federal government was like, ‘This can’t be made.’ All over the place on the earth, previous males are in energy, so that you don’t wish to symbolically kill them within the film, in order that they didn’t need the daddy determine to die within the film. They have been telling me, ‘Ship him touring. He goes on a visit and comes again on the finish.’ Which I didn’t wish to do. Additionally, I didn’t wish to make a film that’s ‘shot illegally.’ I’ve finished that earlier than. I don’t wish to do it. It is a film that I needed to essentially care about each element. I didn’t wish to shoot it underneath the bottom with non-actors. I needed skilled actors, I needed to have a film that lasts, not a film that makes noise. That’s why I took it to Turkey,” Khatami mentioned.
His final movie, “Terrestrial Verses,” a nine-vignette mosaic concerning the petty bureaucracies of working-class life in Iran, was shot in secret. “I’m acquainted with that form of filmmaking, however it doesn’t excite me. The film, after all, individuals go, ‘Oh my god, the film’s shot illegally.’ There isn’t any worth to that for me,” Khatami mentioned. “Sure, some festivals will love you for doing that, however the film must final. For me, politics is capital P. … In fact, Islamophobia sells very effectively. If you’re subtly Islamophobic, you’ll be well-received within the Cannes competitors.”
Khatami believes that Telefilm Canada lastly supporting his movie because the Worldwide Function Oscar choice is a “large step ahead” for BIPOC filmmakers residing in Canada.
“I lived as a refugee in lots of locations earlier than. That is the primary time that I’ve a rustic that may choose a film of mine. I admire Telefilm lastly agreeing to allow us to compete in that choice course of,” he mentioned. “There was just a little little bit of hesitation in the beginning. We went forwards and backwards quite a bit concerning the guidelines and laws of the Academy, how we’re eligible, and eventually, Telefilm agreed, and I acquired plenty of very emotional calls from non-white filmmakers. Some have been in tears, who thought they might by no means choose a film like this. In a method, we broke a barrier for BIPOC filmmakers [in Canada]. Canada will not be solely within the labor of the immigration neighborhood; now it lastly has embraced their tales as effectively.”
Half thriller, half ethical parable, and half surreal train, that “The Issues You Kill” is so constantly unpredictable and stunning in its construction, casting, and themes was by design, a method for Khatami to shake up the sleepiness of plenty of trendy cinema.
“A number of individuals have been shocked by the formal selections we made,” he mentioned of the movie’s Sundance premiere. “They didn’t anticipate that. I knew there have been sure expectations from an ‘Iranian filmmaker’ while you make a movie in Turkey, so I began the movie as a Computer virus of an Asghar Farhadi film. Individuals coming to the movie assume they know the movie. Once I pull the rug from beneath them, lots of people who’re actually cinephiles are excited to see a daring formal alternative, however some individuals get pissed. ‘Who the hell is he to do this? These sorts of issues are imagined to be Gaspar Noé or David Lynch.’ However I’m grateful. Lots of people have been fairly open to the movie, and the extra time handed, the higher response we acquired.”
Khatami modeled “The Issues You Kill” after the varieties of films that excite him, the boundary-pushing of say the aforementioned Lynch and Kiarostami, which aren’t de rigeuer for a lot of of his fellow Iranian filmmakers. (Jafar Panahi’s made-in-secret Palme d’Or winner “It Was Simply an Accident,” for instance, was shot in secret however can also be one of many dissident Iranian director’s most easy narratives.)
“That excites me, a film that doesn’t die. A film that, OK, it’s not simply digestible, he mentioned. “I’m a cinephile at coronary heart. I wish to push this to some territory that we haven’t found but. What’s the purpose of me having a few flashbacks and say, this man exists or doesn’t exist? That’s been finished many instances, so can we push it? Lots of people make movies just like the cinema is lifeless, like there may be nothing else between my medium shot, your medium shot. Can we do one thing that’s extra exhilarating? In fact, there may be danger. However that’s what retains me alive. This film took eight years for me to make. I don’t wish to make medium shot to medium shot. I wish to make a film that, 20 years later, I watch it and say, ‘That’s nonetheless watchable.’”
He mentioned that the idea of the movie “began as friendship between these two guys [Ali and Reza] and slowly discovering that he’s in negotiation with himself. I began experimenting with my very own narrative. I began bringing my sisters into it, my mother into it, my dad into it, constructing the world round it. However each step of the best way, I’m all the time like a baby. I’m like, ‘OK, that is the paved path. However what if I step right here? What if I attempt to go and get misplaced on this space?’ And that’s all the time, each as a author and as a director, exhilarating, proper? Lots of people have been saying, ‘This won’t work.’ Individuals get fairly confused. However that was thrilling for me. I like dwelling within the confused area.”
That mentioned, “I wouldn’t name it a confusion, however there’s a thriller that life is. The capability to carry the thriller in your hand and say, ‘OK, I’m going to dwell with this.’ As a filmmaker, I’m not afraid of pushing the viewers to virtually depart, however I don’t need them to depart, so I tone again. I don’t make experimental movies, however I push them to the sting. Nonetheless wish to depart? I give them one thing to take a seat again [for].”
“The Issues You Kill” is now in choose theaters from Cineverse.
