The Sundance Film Festival kicks off Thursday, January 23rd, and IndieWire can share an exclusive trailer for a disturbing new film that can’t be missed in the World Cinema Dramatic competition. Iranian director Alireza Khatami (“Earthly verses,” the only Iranian film to premiere at Cannes in 2023) debuts the mind-bending and story-bending thriller “The Things You Kill” in Turkey, about a literature professor who imagines a murder close to home. Or is it a disappearance?
As I wrote in our Sundance curtain raiserwith shades of Abbas Kiarostami in his self-awareness and “Lost Highway” flipping through the story (and a key cast member) halfway through, “The Things You Kill” is shot with cool precision as Ali (Ekin Koç) befriends an enigmatic gardener who opens the door to kick start his smooth life. It’s hard to say too much about this fascinating film without spoiling it, but Khatami, who lives in Canada, exhibits calm control over a story that inexorably agonizes toward doom. Until history turns inside out again.
Here is Sundance Film Festival Official Programming Description: “Following the suspicious death of his ailing mother, a university professor forces his enigmatic gardener to carry out a cold-blooded act of revenge. Acclaimed Iranian-American director Alireza Khatami (‘Terrestrial Verses’, Cannes Film Festival 2023) makes his Sundance competition debut with his striking third feature , a quietly insidious psychological thriller that hits close to home with inventiveness and boldness self-awareness, Khatami orchestrates a gradual descent into the oppressive depths of generational patriarchy, peeling back long-held secrets and collectively accepted behavior to confront the decaying internalized ugliness beneath.The film is set against sweeping landscapes and boasts a renowned Turkish cast whose nuanced performances punctuate this searing examination of cycles of violence, and ensures voice is given to a generation desperately trying to renounce the dark legacy they have inherited. Ambitious and disturbing, ‘The Things You Kill’ shatters expectations to deliver a timely and original vision of the cost of personal and collective liberation.”
Watch the trailer for “The Things You Kill,” an IndieWire exclusive, below.
“The Things You Kill” premieres in the World Cinema Dramatic competition at the Sundance Film Festival on January 24. It will also be available online starting January 30 to the public. Best Friend Forever handles sales at the festival.
