Kristen Stewart Guantanamo Movie Gets Handsome Muslim Inmate

Peyman Moaadi

Kristen Stewart movie Camp X-Ray reportedly gets leading man: Peyman Moaadi

June 24 update: Two Kristen Stewart movie projects were announced a couple of weeks ago: Olivier Assayas’ psychological drama Sils Maria, to co-star Juliette Binoche and Chloë Grace Moretz, and writer-director Peter Sattler’s political drama Camp X-Ray. (More info further below.) The latter movie reportedly has found its leading man: Best Foreign Language Film Oscar winner A Separation star Peyman Moaadi.

According to TheWrap, in Camp X-Ray the 43-year-old (or 42, or 41, depending on the source) Moaadi will play Ali, a Muslim inmate who has been languishing in Guantanamo for eight years. Kristen Stewart is set to play an American soldier recently assigned to the American concentration camp, where she strikes an unusual friendship with Ali. Could there be hope for the world? Don’t hold your breath, but one never knows…

TheWrap adds that Joseph Julian Soria, among whose credits are Fast & Furious and the television series Army Wives, will also be featured in Camp X-Ray. Soria will play one of Stewart’s “closest friends” at Guantanamo.

Production on Camp X-Ray is expected to begin later this summer in the Los Angeles area. The film’s producers are Gina Kwon (Miranda July’s Me and You and Everyone We Know, Jennifer Aniston’s The Good Girl) and Sophia Lin (Take Shelter, Trumbo), with David Gordon Green (who directed Kristen Stewart in the family drama Undertow), as one of its executive producers.

First-time feature director Peter Sattler comes from a background in the art department. Sattler’s credits as a graphic designer include J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek, Karey Kirkpatrick’s Imagine That, and James Mangold’s Walk the Line. Additionally, he worked as on-set dresser on Undertow.

Peyman Moaadi movies

According to the IMDb, the New York City-born Peyman Moaadi has written six screenplays, including the family / social drama The Snow on the Pines, a 2013 release (in Iran) that marked his directorial debut.

Moaadi’s movies as an actor are few. Besides Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation, one of the best-received 2011 films anywhere in the world, he was also featured in Farhadi’s About Elly (2009). Next in line is Kazuaki Kiriya’s The Last Knights, currently in post-production, and featuring Academy Award nominee Clive Owen (Closer), Academy Award winner Morgan Freeman (Million Dollar Baby), Man of Steel‘s Ayelet Zurer, Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nominee Shohreh Aghdashloo (House of Sand and Fog), Val Lauren (the star of James Franco’s Sal), and Cliff Curtis.

On TV, Peyman Moadi was featured in the HBO pilot Criminal Justice, starring the recently deceased James Gandolfini. Coincidentally, Gandolfini was Kristen Stewart’s co-star in Jake Scott’s Welcome to the Rileys.

June 4

Kristen Stewart.

Kristen Stewart News: ‘Camp X-Ray’ & ‘Sils Maria’ movie projects

Kristen Stewart is back with no less than two projects to be filmed this summer, according to Deadline.com. The website asserts that Stewart “has committed” – that should mean signed contracts – to star in newcomer writer-director Peter Sattler’s political drama Camp X-Ray and in director Olivier Assayas’ psychological drama Sils Maria, co-starring Juliette Binoche and Chloë Grace Moretz. (Image: Kristen Stewart.)

Kristen Stewart takes the road to Guantanamo

Camp X-Ray will have Kristen Stewart as a young woman who, as per the Deadline synopsis, escapes from her small town by joining the military. But instead of being sent to Iraq “as she hoped” (is she insane?), the soldier ends up in Guantanamo, the American concentration camp that remains open despite myriad promises about its imminent closure.

At Guantanamo, the young soldier “is met with hatred and abuse from the Muslim men in her charge.” But apparently because she’s a nice soldier who doesn’t torture prisoners, “she forges an odd friendship” with a young man – I’m assuming he’s a Muslim inmate – who has been at Guantanamo for eight years.

David Gordon Green, who directed Kristen Stewart in the 2004 family drama Undertow, is one of Camp X-Ray‘s executive producers. Filming is supposed to begin in late summer.

Peter Sattler, by the way, comes from a background in the art department. His credits as graphic designer include J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek and James Mangold’s Walk the Line. He also worked as on-set dresser on Undertow.

Olivier Assayas to reunite with Juliette Binoche

Reportedly written for Oscar winner Juliette Binoche (The English Patient), Sils Maria will reunite Olivier Assayas with his Summer Hours star. Set in Switzerland, Sils Maria “explores middle age and that introspective period where one questions how they’ve spent their life so far and what they’ve accomplished”: A middle-aged actress (Juliette Binoche) becomes obsessed with a young actress (Chloë Grace Moretz) playing a role that made the older woman famous in her youth. Kristen Stewart, replacing Alice in Wonderland‘s Mia Wasikowska, will play the older actress’ assistant.

If Sils Maria doesn’t sound like something inspired by Ingmar Bergman, I don’t know what is. Persona immediately comes to mind: nervous-breakdown-suffering actress Liv Ullmann and nurse Bibi Andersson. Robert Altman, too: Three Women, with Sissy Spacek, Shelley Duvall, and Janice Rule in the title roles. True, How to Marry a Millionaire (and its previous incarnations) also had three female leads, but I can’t picture Sils Maria featuring the modern versions of Betty Grable, Lauren Bacall, and Marilyn Monroe – or William Powell.

Anyhow, IFC Films has already acquired the North American distribution rights to Sils Maria. Why so fast? Well, Olivier Assayas’ Summer Hours was one of the best-received movies of 2009 in the U.S., and so was Assayas’ movie / miniseries Carlos, when it came out in 2010.

Of note, IFC Films also handled the domestic distribution of another Kristen Stewart movie, the Walter Salles-directed On the Road co-starring Sam Riley and Garrett Hedlund. Hopefully, Sils Maria will be much luckier on the North American front.

According to the IMDb, the Sils Maria cast also includes Daniel Brühl and Stewart’s fellow On the Road actor Tom Sturridge.

Kristen Stewart: Busy again?

Following the end of the Twilight movie franchise late last year, it looked like Kristen Stewart would be taking a long, long vacation. The Snow White and the Huntsman sequel remained a distant possibility until finally confirmed about a month or so ago. Even so, there were no definite shooting dates.

Focus was announced, in which Stewart was to co-star opposite Ben Affleck. But first Affleck jumped out, then Stewart followed suit. Lie Down in Darkness, unfortunately, also turned out to be a no go, according to reports. It’d have been a solid role for Kristen Stewart.

Then there’s The Big Shoe, to be directed by Steven Shainberg, and to co-star Jim Sturgess and Elizabeth Banks. Once again according to reports, shooting should begin in the next couple of months.

If so, Kristen Stewart will have three summer projects? Sounds like Robert Pattinson and Mission: Blacklist (curiously, also featuring Muslim prisoners), David Cronenberg’s Maps to the Stars, and Werner Herzog’s Queen of the Desert. (More on Robert Pattinson’s three summer movies.)

Well, here’s hoping all those projects will pan out. It’s time to see the much underrated Kristen Stewart back in action. And Robert Pattinson as well. Stewart won’t have any 2013 releases, but Pattinson should have David Michôd’s The Rover, which was filmed earlier this year.

Now, what will Taylor Lautner be doing this summer?