Like Gates’ short, “Atropia” opens with a near-identical scene of an Iraqi woman played by Alia Shawkat, witnessing U.S. troops rolling through her hometown in pursuit of a suspect right as ...

By Lovia Gyarkye Arts & Culture Critic In Atropia, Gates, who also wrote the screenplay, includes a hampering romantic thread between our aspiring actress and a soldier cast as an Atropian ...

So she turned the idea into an unconventional love story instead, and “Atropia” was born. The film, which premiered on Saturday at the Sundance Film Festival, was originally conceived as a ...

He challenged her to write the script for “Atropia” in only four weeks. “It was my most romantic writing experience because I was writing directly toward him,” she recalled. Gates and ...

In writer-director Hailey Gates’ directorial debut Atropia, she dives into the Bush-era culture of toxic masculinity, nationalism and Islamophobia with an amusing and profoundly absurdist sense ...

War remains one of this nation’s most profitable exports, and in Atropia, which premiered at Sundance, Gates attempts to satirize the goings-on at this role-playing facility through the eyes of ...