There’s an inherent farce to the U.S. government, or so Hailey Gates suggests in her debut feature film, Atropia. Based on her 2019 short film Shako Mako, Gates expands her exploration of fake towns established by the American military for training purposes and the actors cast as townspeople — and potential terrorists — in those training scenarios.

Hailey Gates turned her Miu Miu "Women's Tales" short film into a Sundance feature, starring Alia Shawkat and Callum Turner.

Set in a fake town, Hailey Gates’ feature debut 'Atropia,' premiering at Sundance, has fun, insightful ideas, though it seldom expands on them.

Like many of the independent films that premiered at this muted edition of Sundance, “Atropia” has not yet sold to a distributor.

Atropia': How Callum Turner & Alia Shawkat Found A Soul Connection In Hailey Gates' War Satire - Sundance Studio

An aspiring actress in an army role-playing facility falls in love with a soldier in Hailey Gates' feature debut, which also stars Callum Turner and Chloë Sevigny.

Sundance: Directed by "Challengers" actress Hailey Gates, "Atropia" gives the War on Terror it's own take on "The Truman Show."

In writer-director Hailey Gates’ directorial debut, she dives into the Bush-era culture of toxic masculinity, nationalism and Islamaphobia with an amusing and profoundly absurdist sense of satire. Set in 2006,

Callum Turner desperately wants to be bleeped, and Alia Shawkat's mother feared she couldn't act. Hailey Gates' new film pops.

Mark E. Potts is the senior editor for video at the Los Angeles Times. A native of Enid, Okla., Potts graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a master’s degree in broadcast journalism. He has created and edited video for DreamWorks, YouTube, Microsoft, Sony and BET.

Sundance got a movie star surprise this weekend, when Channing Tatum popped up with a previously unannounced role in the competition title "Atropia."

The village is small and dense, lined with crumbling structures and the exploded remains of cars. The women, hanging laundry or selling American movies on DVD out of dusty briefcases, are suspicious.