Director Hailey Gates (debut) travels back to 2006 to explore Atropia through the eyes of aspiring actress Fayruz (Alia Shawkat, “The Final Girls”). Based on a real military simulation town, Medina ...

Alia Shawkat is magnetic on-screen, playing an aspiring actress named Fayruz who’s committed to honing her craft during this simulation exercise.

What to know: Alia Shawkat stars as an aspiring actress who takes a gig at a military role-playing facility that simulates life in Iraq for soldiers. Things get wonky when she falls in love.

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 product of pure fiction.

Imagine if the U.S. military had created a lifelike simulation of fictional Iraqi towns on U.S. soil. They had done so in order to acclimatize American soldiers to both the violence and culture of the ...

Alia Shawkat stars in Atropia, the feature debut of writer-director Hailey Gates. Atropia won the Grand Jury Prize for dramatic films.

Alia Shawkat stars in Atropia, the feature debut of writer-director Hailey Gates. Atropia won the Grand Jury Prize for dramatic films.