Flula Borg & Troy Kotsur Wrap On Satirical Horror Film ‘The American Winner’ From Farbod Ardebili
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- Flula Borg plays a megalomaniacal tech billionaire who manipulates markets from his residence while protecting a bizarre "being" he's accidentally impregnated, with the entire film unfolding inside his palatial bathroom.
- Troy Kotsur co-stars in the debut feature from Iranian writer-director Farbod Ardebili, marking a genre pivot for the Oscar-winning CODA actor following turns in Netflix's Black Rabbit and Paramount's Primate.
- Producer Daniel Brandt of Plain Text described the film as a "five-minutes-into-the-future tech world update of AMERICAN PSYCHO infused with a THE THING-style monster" that "pulls no punches."
- Bad Grey's Dane and Cole Eckerle and Plain Text's Daniel Brandt and Mark Finley produced the film, with previous collaborations including SXSW Grand Jury Prize winner I Love My Dad, Mermaid, and Tribeca winners Cotton Fever.
- Additional cast includes Ashby Gentry (Netflix's My Life with the Walter Boys), Misha Osherovich (Freaky), Toks Olagundoye (Frasier), Lorena Gonzalez, and Shavvon Lin, with exec producers from Principal Entertainment and Story Incubator.
- Ardebili immigrated to the U.S. from Iran in 2014 with the support of the Sundance Film Intensive Fellowship, and his prior directorial work has screened at Fantastic Fest and Fantasia.
Why it matters: The one-location bathroom conceit and Borg/Kotsur pairing signal a high-concept genre play rather than a star-vehicle, with Brandt's explicit AMERICAN PSYCHO/THE THING framing positioning it for festival play. Ardebili's Iranian-American background and Sundance fellowship backing add an emerging-voice dimension that could matter for indie distributors tracking new horror auteurs.
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