Charli XCX has spent the last few years bending pop stardom into something jagged and self-aware; now she’s turning that project into a movie. A24’s “The Moment,” a mockumentary about a rising pop star gearing up for her first headlining arena tour, has dropped its first teaser, framing the singer as both subject and saboteur of her own fame.
Directed by Aidan Zamiri and written by Zamiri with Bertie Brandes, “The Moment” is based on an original idea by Charli XCX, who also produces alongside David Hinojosa. The film follows a pop sensation navigating the pressures of an industry that commodifies chaos, image, and “relatability”. At the same time, she prepares to take a carefully constructed persona into the biggest, brightest rooms of her career. Official materials describe it as a mockumentary that peeks behind the curtain of a first arena tour, tracing how underground scenes mutate once they’re absorbed into the mainstream.
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Charli stars as a fictionalized version of herself — what she’s called a “sort of a hell version” of Charli XCX — which fits neatly with the film’s meta, self-lacerating angle. She’s joined by a stacked ensemble that includes Rosanna Arquette, Kate Berlant, Jamie Demetriou, Arielle Dombasle, Hailey Benton Gates, Kylie Jenner, Trew Mullen, Mel Ottenberg, Isaac Powell, Rachel Sennott, Rish Shah, Alexander Skarsgård, and Michael Workéyè — a cast that blurs the line between pop, fashion, comedy, and film in exactly the way the movie is interrogating.
Behind the camera, “The Moment” is shot by celebrated indie cinematographer Sean Price Williams (“Good Time”), with production design by Francesca Di Mottola, editing by Billy Sneddon and Neal Farmer, costume design by Taylor McNeill, and music by longtime Charli collaborator A.G. Cook. Casting is by Jennifer Venditti. A24 collaborates with Studio365, 2 AM, Good World, and Atlantic Records, further solidifying the project as a crossover between the label machinery that helped build Charli’s career and the indie-film ecosystem now mythologizing it.
Set to have its world premiere at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival before opening nationwide, “The Moment” looks like a gleefully poisoned valentine to pop celebrity — a film about a star who finally gets everything she thought she wanted and then has to live inside the distortion.
“The Moment” opens in theaters on January 30, 2026.
