Directed by Alireza Khatami (Canada, Turkey, Poland, France, 2025, 114 min.). Turkish with English subtitles.

Premiering in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival, The Things You Kill is a taut, psychologically charged mystery about grief, vengeance, and the corrosive pull of the past. The film marks the first feature made primarily in Turkish by Iranian filmmaker Alireza Khatami, a shift that grew out of the project’s evolution from its original conception in Iran to a fully realised narrative rooted in a Turkish cultural and linguistic context.

Ali, a Turkish-born university professor living in the United States, returns home after the suspicious death of his ailing mother and becomes consumed by unanswered questions and old resentments—particularly toward his estranged father. In his turmoil, Ali forms a tenuous bond with Reza, an enigmatic gardener, whom he coerces into carrying out a cold-blooded act of retribution. But as long-buried family secrets begin to surface and the police tighten their net, doubt gnaws at Ali’s resolve, forcing him toward a reckoning with the darkest parts of himself.

Selected as Canada’s official submission for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film, Khatami’s haunting drama probes the thin line between justice and destruction—and the cost of crossing it.

Watch the trailer.