Posts Tagged ‘Alireza Khatami’

IHEARTRADIO: MUSICIAN PETER ELKAS + FILMMAKER ALIREZA KHATAMI

On the Saturday March 28, 2026 edition of The Richard Crouse Show we meet singer-songwriter and producer Peter Elkas.

He’s toured the world as a multi-instrumentalist and vocalist with the likes of Neko Case, Joel Plaskett, and Andy Kim, released a string of celebrated solo records produced by Don Kerr and Charlie Sexton, and shared stages with everyone from Feist and Nick Lowe to The Doobie Brothers and Bruce Springsteen.

Now, “Lion Lion,” originally released on his 2018 EP Lion, is roaring back into focus thanks to an unexpected new chapter. Elkas recently stepped into the acting world, appearing as Ed—the local record store owner—in the 2026 Netflix original series Finding Her Edge. In a perfectly meta twist, the show also features “Lion Lion” in an episode Elkas appears in, with the song landing on Netflix’s official Finding Her Edge playlist.

We talk about the resurgence of the song and more!

Then, award-winning Iranian Canadian filmmaker Alireza Khatami. His debut feature, Oblivion Verses (2017), premiered at the Venice Film Festival, earning multiple accolades including the Best Screenplay award in that category, the FIPRESCI Prize, and the Interfilm Award. In 2023, he co-directed Terrestrial Verses, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.

Today we talk about his latest film The Things You Kill, a psychological thriller exploring family dynamics, toxic masculinity, and personal trauma (drawing heavily from his own experiences). It premiered in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at Sundance, where he won the Directing Award, and was selected as Canada’s official entry for Best International Feature Film at the 98th Academy Awards and it is now playing in theatres everywhere.

Listen to the whole thing HERE!

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Each week on the nationally syndicated Richard Crouse Show, Canada’s most recognized movie critic brings together some of the most interesting and opinionated people from the movies, television and music to put a fresh spin on news from the world of lifestyle and pop-culture. Tune into this show to hear in-depth interviews with actors and directors, to find out what’s going on behind the scenes of your favourite shows and movies and get a new take on current trends. Recent guests include Chris Pratt, Elvis Costello, Baz Luhrmann, Martin Freeman, David Cronenberg, Mayim Bialik, The Kids in the Hall and many more!

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THE THINGS YOU KILL: 4 STARS. “finely crafted study of vengeance and identity.”

SYNOPSIS: In “The Things You Kill,” a new thriller now playing in theatres from award winning director Alireza Khatami, a Turkish university professor seeks vengeance in the death of his mother.

CAST: Ekin Koç, Erkan Kolçak Köstendil, Hazar Ergüçlü, Ercan Kesal. Directed by Alireza Khatami.

REVIEW: A thriller that also works as a character study, “The Things You Kill” is finely crafted study of grief, vengeance and identity.

Ekin Koç plays Ali, a university literature professor whose life is slowly spiralling downwards. Uneasy about keeping his low fertility diagnosis a secret from his wife and an unstable work life, he’s driven to the edge by the suspicious death of his mother, an elderly woman disabled after being beaten years before by Ali’s domineering father Hamit (Ercan Kesal).

When his mother is found, face down in her home, with the doors locked, Ali suspects foul play. Haunted by grief, his personal investigation into his mother’s passing leads him to lay the blame for her death at his father’s feet.

Shattered and filled with vengeance, Ali hires his gardener Reza (Erkan Kolçak Köstendil) to kidnap and kill Hamit.

No spoilers here but suffice to say that what follows is a look at how repression can manifest itself in increasingly existential ways.

“The Things You Kill” takes a big swing mid-movie. Accept it, and the film opens up, revealing a morality play disguised as an Hitchcockian story of the horrors of losing control of one’s life. It may ask more questions than it answers, but the study of intergenerational trauma and inherited violence elevates what could have been a standard story of revenge.

It’s a bold movie that challenges audience expectations. Instead of offering easy answers to the film’s questions, director Alireza Khatami favors ambiguity, dream-like sequences and elliptical storytelling. Engaged viewers will find much to chew on here as the story develops from family drama and revenge to darker and more surreal.

The spectre of David Lynch hangs heavy over “The Things You Kill” in its ability to challenge the audience’s perceptions of what a revenge movie can be by infusing a well know genre with riddles and feverish metaphors that allow for viewer interpretation.

“The Things That Kill” you is a rarity, a cerebral story of vengeance that embraces the tropes of the genre and then subverts them with clever filmmaking.