Vertical has revealed the full trailer for “Atropia,” the Sundance Grand Jury Prize–winning directorial debut of Hailey Benton Gates. The film is set to open in theaters on December 12, 2025, with a wider rollout planned for January 2026.
Set in a fabricated nation created by the U.S. military to train soldiers in simulated war zones, “Atropia” explores what happens when real emotion collides with staged conflict. The story follows Alia Shawkat as an aspiring actress who joins a military role-playing program and unexpectedly falls for a soldier, played by Callum Turner, who is cast as an insurgent. When unscripted feelings emerge, the line between performance and reality begins to unravel.
The review at The Playlist described the film as “a searing send-up of America taking care of (show) business in Iraq,” adding that “its critique focuses not on a simplistic binary of the conflict… war is a business — show business, to be specific.”
“Atropia” is produced by Luca Guadagnino, Naima Abed, Emilie Georges, Lana Kim, and Jett Steiger, and features Zahra Alzubaidi, Tony Shawkat, Jane Levy, Tim Heidecker, Lola Kirke, and Chloe Sevigny in its ensemble. Positioned as a blend of comedy, war satire, and romance, the film examines how conflict becomes spectacle and how the boundaries between actor and soldier blur.
