Farhadi Speaks: The Screen's Most Honest Man

There is a version of this conversation that stays in the realm of cinema — awards, box office, craft — and Asghar Farhadi could live there comfortably forever. Two Oscars. A Golden Bear. The rare distinction of being a filmmaker who actually makes money while making art, which in 2026 is practically a supernatural achievement. He could talk about structure, about the way he builds dramatic irony into domestic scenes until the walls feel like they're pressing in. He could talk about any of that. Instead he asked a room of industry people why they insist a mother in Afghanistan is different from their own.

That's the quote. Sit with it.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the cultural spectrum, Nat Geo's *Lion* is doing something quietly radical with its cinematography — director of photography Sophie Darlington building sequences frame by patient frame, real imperfections left in, no AI smoothing the mud off the shot. In an era when generated imagery has made everything technically flawless and spiritually empty, a slightly shaky shot of an actual lion pride in actual light has started to feel like an act of resistance. The irony is that authentic patience now reads as avant-garde.

Elsewhere: *Whalefall* has released a trailer in which Austin Abrams gets swallowed alive by a whale, which is exactly as literal as it sounds, directed by Brian Duffield who clearly has decided that Austin Abrams should never be comfortable on screen. October. Mark it.

Timothy Olyphant is 58 and apparently has not slept since 2024 — *Lucky*, *Alien: Earth* Season 2, and the *Once Upon a Time in Hollywood* sequel all in what sounds like one continuous sprint. He told Esquire he feels lucky. The man is either deeply zen or running on something the rest of us don't have access to.

And then there is Vin Diesel, confirming that *Fast Forever* begins filming in December after going through — his words — four sets of writers. Four. For a franchise that has never once been accused of over-complicating its storytelling. The fact that four separate rooms of writers couldn't crack the ending of the Dominic Toretto saga is either deeply telling or deeply funny, and I have decided it is both.

Mackenzie Crook makes his feature directorial debut with *Mars Express*, opposite Emily Watson and Toby Jones. The man who played Gareth Krentz is now directing Emily Watson. That sentence contains more dramatic range than most things currently in production.

Farhadi is still right, though. He's almost always right.