Iranian Canadian filmmaker Alireza Khatami’s psychological thriller, inspired by his own family trauma, is Canada’s submission for consideration at the Academy Awards. He just hopes his relatives don’t see the film.
Telefilm Canada announced on Tuesday that The Things You Kill will be submitted as Canada’s entry for best international feature. Earlier this year, the movie premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the World Cinema Dramatic Directing Award, and is slated for theatrical release next month.
Khatami, a Toronto professor, said he finds the prospect daunting.
“I don’t think it’s natural for anybody to go in front of an audience and say, ‘Hey, this is my guts. Here is a can of worms I want to open that nobody has seen,”‘ he said on a video call.
“It’s drawn from reality to the point that I’m scared of showing this to my family.”
The Turkish-language film follows a university professor named Ali who has to come to terms with his mother’s suspicious death while grappling with his own role in his family.
Though the thriller has surrealist elements, Khatami said it’s drawn from long-buried family trauma that he spent years coming to terms with and shaping into fiction.
“Autofiction for me is taming your experience to fit into this rectangular silver screen of cinema,” he said. So my job has been mostly not to make up something but to prune it and trim it.”
Khatami said he’s had to balance the artistic process with protecting his family from too much exposure. He’s done that without discussing it with them, he said.
Khatami, who was born in the Indigenous Khamseh tribe in Iran, said his family doesn’t know what’s in the movie — and he won’t ask them to watch it.
“I hope they don’t see the film. It’s not going to be easy for them to see the film. They have been a huge support in my life, and they understand what I’m doing, and I don’t expect them to see my films,” he said. “My family haven’t seen my previous films either.”
They don’t think of him as a filmmaker, he said. They think of him as a son.
The film is a co-production of Turkey, France, Poland and Canada.
Oscars best picture race is full of Canadian nominees
Khatami is an associate professor in the department of image arts at Toronto Metropolitan University. His first feature, Oblivion Verses, premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2017, where it won best screenplay.
To decide which film wins the best international feature, each country chooses one movie to submit to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Those are then narrowed down to a short list, which in turn is whittled down to the final five nominees.
Last year, Canada submitted Matthew Rankin’s Universal Language, which was shortlisted but not nominated.
The 15-film short list will be announced in December, followed by the nominations in January. The 2026 Academy Awards are set for March 15.
