Hiam Abbass On Portraying The “Pain And Injustice” Experienced By Victims Of War In Directors’ Fortnight Title ‘Atonement’

When Hiam Abbass first read the script for Reed Van Dyk’s debut Atonement, based on a 2012 New Yorker article, it moved her to tears. 

“I wasn’t familiar with the article at all, but when I read the script, I started crying while reading it,” Abbass tells Deadline. “And when I get such a big emotion from reading a script, I know that it’s necessary to go into the story and make it happen.”

The film, which plays in Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes this evening (May 15), is set in the early days of the Iraq war, when a U.S. Marine’s split-second decision during a firefight devastates an Iraqi family. Years later, aided by a New Yorker journalist, he seeks to reconcile with the woman and her family who survived. Abbass stars as Mariam, an Iraqi mother who loses her two sons and husband in the firefight while Boyd Holbrook plays U.S. Marine Lou and Kenneth Branagh stars as New Yorker journalist Michael. 

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