Camp Hollywood

A deafening explosion rattles the opening scene of Atropia, a romantic comedy and satire of the U.S. military industrial complex. Fayruz, played by Alia Shawkat (Search Party, Arrested Development), uses her head wrap as a makeshift tourniquet on a fellow villager who is dismembered in the blow. Moments later, someone yells, “Cut!” This is not war. Instead, it’s a curated immersive experience in the Southern California Mojave Desert. Atropia is an active military training ground, according to the writer and director, Hailey Gates, that prepares soldiers for the brutalities of war. The film captures the absurdities of this exercise through juxtapositions: America versus Iraq, theater versus reality, comedy versus darker American imperialist tropes, romance versus sex in ugly places (a portable toilet in the desert).

Set in 2006, Atropia offers a critique of America’s military presence in Iraq in the early aughts but skirts a didactic examination of the war. Post-9/11, there were reportedly hundreds of military simulation facilities across the country, many using faked explosions and "wounded" actors (some wearing baby carriers) to heighten the drama. The most hardcore of these places piped in the smell of burning flesh. The real Atropia is located within Fort Irwin National Training Center and contains about a dozen faux villages. Military troops would train on location over three weeks, living alongside actors and producers. Each multiweek session cost the government roughly $20 million, according to Gates, who spent years researching these programs. Gates originally conceived of Atropia as a documentary but was denied access to the exercises. Instead, Gates wrote a 17-minute film—2019’s excellent Shako Mako—starring Shawkat, whom Gates also counts as a collaborator.

In Atropia, Shawkat’s Fayruz longs to be recognized as a serious actress but is stuck playing a bit part as an Iraqi villager on a military base. Enter the handsome American soldier (Callum Turner), who role-plays as the insurgent Abu Dice during Atropia’s simulations, to distract Fayruz from her Hollywood ambitions. Opposites attract—white American war fighter and Iraqi villager. Atropia is, after all, a romantic comedy.

Actor Alia Shawkat, director Hailey Gates, and actor Callum Turner attend the Atropia premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.

Shawkat holds the film’s center. She appeals to the audience with her mischievous smile, generously splashed with freckles, and comedic timing sharpened from years spent acting on sitcoms. Shawkat, who is Iraqi American, casually and confidently leans into the complexities Fayruz faces. There’s a memorable scene where Fayruz enters a room filled with motionless Afghan animatronics (devices that were actually used in the training facilities) to make a phone call. Gates uses the comedic rule of three: close-up shot on a still Afghan animatronic, close-up on another motionless Afghan animatronic, and then a close-up on Fayruz, still as an animatronic, before she finally speaks. The moment punches up the tokenism of Fayruz’s role; is she valued for her art or merely being used as a stand-in? The scene reminds this Indigenous writer of challenges Native actors encounter when cast in “leather and feathers” roles for western films—those usually star a white lead and have been created by largely non-Indigenous writers and producers.

In her director’s statement, Gates says that Southern California is “one of the most militarized parts of the country.” The proximity to the home of the film industry (Los Angeles) makes a collaboration inevitable. Need a set? Looking for actors? Hollywood to the rescue. Atropia’s quirky and absurd spin was enough for Sundance to award the film the 2025 Grand Jury Prize for Dramatic Competition. At the time this story was written, Atropia was still awaiting a distribution deal. It deserves one.•

Jason Asenap

Jason Asenap is a Comanche and Muscogee Creek writer, critic, and filmmaker based in Albuquerque, New Mexico.