Month: June 2025

Judo contender risks ayatollah’s wrath

Iranian martial artist Leila Hosseini (Adrienne Mandi) contemplates her next move after her government orders her to withdraw from an international judo competition.

By Richard Ades

One of my favorite movies of 2024 was The Seed of the Sacred Fig, about a family torn apart by Iran’s theocratic dictatorship. In the same year, one of my favorite guilty pleasures was Cobra Kai, the Karate Kid-inspired TV series that was wrapping up its six-season run.

So maybe it’s no surprise that one of my favorite films of 2025 is Tatami, which combines a jab at Iranian authoritarianism with youthful martial arts.

Before you let your imagination run wild, no, this is not the tale of two dojos that trade chops and kicks while arguing over Islamic principles. Instead, it centers on Leila Hosseini, an Iranian athlete who travels to Tbilisi, Georgia to take part in an international judo competition.

Portrayed with fierce determination by Adrienne Mandi, Leila psyches herself up for what she knows will be a grueling test of her skill and stamina. In one long day, a series of bouts will pit her against some of the world’s toughest competitors.

Providing advice and pep talks from the sidelines is her coach, Maryam Ghanbari (sensitively played by Zar Amir Ebrahimi). Between matches, Leila receives additional support via phone calls from her cheerleading husband, Nader (Ash Goldeh), who’s watching the proceedings on TV along with their young son and a houseful of relatives.

Leila (Adrienne Mandi, right) and her coach, Maryam Ghanbari (Zar Amir Ebrahimi), find themselves in an unexpected dilemma.

Then something happens that in most societies would be unthinkable. Coach Maryam receives orders from government officials that Leila must throw a match, fake an injury or simply withdraw from the competition. The reason: Leila’s early successes make it likely that she’ll end up vying for the championship with the top competitor from Iran’s mortal enemy, Israel.

The order reportedly comes from the “Supreme Leader” himself, the ayatollah, which means disobeying would spell big trouble for Leila, her coach and even her family. Realizing the danger, Maryam urges Leila to do as she’s told, even though it means giving up her lifelong dream.

Stubbornly, though, Leila refuses. Her decision immediately ostracizes her from her coach and teammates, leaving her on her own as she returns to the mat over and over to encounter increasingly tough competitors. All the while, the governmental threats continue.

Leila (Adrienne Mandi, in white) meets her latest competitor while competing for an international title.

Co-directed by Israeli filmmaker Guy Nattiv and Ebrahimi, the Iranian-born actor who plays Maryam, Tatami effectively combines sports action with political intrigue to create a tense viewing experience. Todd Martin’s stark black-and-white cinematography gives the film the look of a vintage documentary, lending it an air of veracity.

Indeed, the script by Nattiv and Elham Erfani is said to be inspired by actual athletes’ experiences. That doesn’t mean it all rings true, as one key development seems as contrived as it is predictable.

Even so, committed performances by Mandi, Ebrahimi and the rest of the cast keep viewers attentive and concerned, while composer Dascha Dauenhauer’s music underscores each scene’s emotions without ever overplaying its hand.

Coming out in the midst of the current confrontation among Iran, Israel and the U.S., Tatami’s timing is near perfect—just like the film itself.

Rating: 4½ stars (out of 5)

Tatami (no MPA rating) can be viewed in select theaters and is scheduled to open May 27 at the Gateway Film Center in Columbus.

Shooting survivor fights back by going to the gym

Jeannette Feliciano is a personal trainer and bodybuilder who survived the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida. (Photos courtesy of Gravitas Ventures)

By Richard Ades

As a documentary about a woman who deals with trauma with the help of exercise, Jeannette reminds me of a movie I wanted to make years ago. The main difference is that my film never got made, probably because I didn’t know how to create a space in which the woman in question felt safe enough to tell her story.

Director Maris Curran, obviously, does know how. She partly accomplishes this by avoiding the kind of probing interviews one generally sees in documentaries. Instead, she allows her subject to simply live her life in front of the camera.

Curran’s subject is Jeannette Feliciano, a survivor of 2016’s horrific mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

Besides being a survivor, Jeannette is also a lesbian, a single mom, a Latina, a personal trainer and a competitive bodybuilder. All of these facets of her life are represented in the documentary’s one hour and 18 minutes, though some are given more space than others.

For example, we see a lot of Jeannette’s nurturing relationship with her son, Anthony, but little of her relationship with girlfriend Yaris. Presumably, that’s because Jeannette isn’t comfortable revealing that part of her life to strangers.

One thing Jeannette is not shy about revealing is the extent to which her near-death experience has continued to haunt her. When she’s in public, she admits at one point, she can’t help imagining what she would do if a similar incident were to arise.

It’s not surprising, as the Pulse shooting was a tragedy of immense proportions. Entering the club during “last call” on that fateful night, a single gunman was able to kill 49 people and wound 53 more.

Jeannette was an up-and-coming competitive bodybuilder prior to the 2016 shooting at an Orlando nightclub.

Even so, as the film demonstrates, Jeannette has fought back against fear and the kind of spiritual paralysis her ordeal could have created. This comes out most clearly in an early scene, when she invites fellow survivors to her local gym for a workout session aimed at strengthening their psyches as well as their bodies.

The doc’s slice-of-life style is well served by cinematographer Jerry Henry’s sensitive images. Nevertheless, its limitations are sometimes evident.

When a handgun-toting Jeannette visits a shooting range to take aim at a paper target, there’s no explanation of how she came to be there. Has she always been a gun owner, or did she become one in response to her traumatic experience?

Given the U.S.’s endless debate over guns, gun control and gun violence, it’s an interesting question, but it’s one the film never brings up.

Likewise, when Jeannette visits Puerto Rico to help out family members dealing with the devastation left by 2017’s Hurricane Maria, the documentary keeps the focus solely on her heroic efforts. It ignores the storm’s political fallout, including the Trump administration’s delayed relief efforts.

As the film goes on, it deals more and more with Jeannette’s attempt to return to the competitive bodybuilding she set aside following the Pulse attack. It all leads to a major contest at which she and other jacked-up women strike poses before an admiring crowd.

Jeannette shares a hug with her teenage son, Anthony.

If Curran had stopped the film there, it would have provided an ending worthy of a Hollywood sports drama. Interestingly, though, she instead follows Jeannette and Anthony to a bowling alley, where they enjoy a little mother-son rivalry.

The modest scene completes the doc’s depiction of Jeannette’s attempt to move beyond the trauma left over from the Pulse shooting. We understand that every attempt she makes to live a normal life—whether she’s trying to get back into competitive bodybuilding or simply going bowling with her son—is a way of fighting back.

If Curran’s film has a message, that’s it.

Rating: 3½ stars (out of 5)

Jeannette will be available through major VOD outlets beginning June 17. 

How the GOP keeps its White voters faithful—and scared

Republican strategist Steve Bannon talks politics in the documentary White With Fear.

By Richard Ades

When Donald Trump talked about immigrants eating people’s pets during a 2024 presidential debate, he was carrying on a longtime Republican campaign tactic: Win the votes of White Americans by scaring the hell out of them.

According to Andrew Goldberg’s documentary White With Fear, this strategy can be traced back at least as far as the 1968 presidential campaign. Even though the controversial Vietnam War was still raging, we learn, the campaign of Republican Richard Nixon focused mainly on race.

Among the film’s many interviewees is author Rick Perlstein (Nixonland), who explains that the GOP worked to recapture the White House by tapping into many White Americans’ hatred of Blacks. This was done largely through innuendo and dog whistles.

When Nixon pledged to support “law and order” and fight crime, for example, it was understood that he was talking specifically about Black crime. The candidate’s subtext was hard to miss when he made statements such as referring to Black-majority Washington, D.C. as “the crime capital of the world.”

 The fearmongering tactic apparently worked, as Nixon captured the presidency. And it obviously continues to work, the documentary points out, as the GOP has won the majority of White votes in every presidential election ever since.

Not that the targets of GOP fearmongering have always remained the same.

When Al-Qaeda-backed terrorists attacked the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, brown-skinned Muslim extremists became the new source of fear. Republican Vice President Dick Cheney fed the paranoia with warnings about sneak attacks involving “chemical agents,” and the fledgling Fox News catapulted to prominence by offering its own nonstop appeals to prejudice and mistrust.

Later, the advent of Barack Obama as a national figure allowed the GOP to launch a two-pronged attack that combined White Americans’ fear of Blacks with their fear of Muslims. Obama actually wasn’t Muslim, but the persistent rumor that he was ran hand in hand with the Trump-fed suspicion that he wasn’t even born in this country.

Then 2020 arrived along with the worldwide COVID pandemic, allowing Republicans to target yet another race: Asians. Falling back on his love for nicknames, Trump led the attack by persistently referring to the scourge as the “Chinese virus” or “kung flu.”   

Hillary Clinton is one of many voices from both the left and the right who are interviewed in White With Fear.

Several years earlier, according to White With Fear, the Grand Old Party had actually considered changing its racially divisive ways. This happened after Obama was elected to a second term in 2012, and Republicans realized it might be a good idea to win over some of the non-White Americans who would one day become the majority.

Their solution: Work to pass immigration reform. But when that proved unpopular with their most conservative representatives, Republicans instead went back to their old ways by launching an attack on immigrants.

Strategists such Steve Bannon came up with the tactic, and then-candidate Trump adopted it with a vengeance. Thus was born his endless attack on immigrants as rapists, murderers and drug dealers; as stealers of American jobs; as replacements for American voters; and, most surreally, as eaters of American pets. It all culminated in the expensive and court-defying effort to expel immigrants that has become a cornerstone of Trump’s second term in office.

One of the most interesting aspects of Goldberg’s documentary is that it tackles its provocative topic with the help of experts from both the left and the right.

There are the expected liberal voices such as Hillary Clinton, who has several incisive things to say about her 2016 presidential opponent. But there are also conservative voices, including some former Trump supporters who have since repented, and others—including Bannon himself—who remain among the MAGA faithful.

This diversity of viewpoints gives us not only a critique of the GOP’s race-baiting approach to politics but a behind-the-scenes look at how it came to be.

Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)

White With Fear will be available through VOD outlets beginning June 3.