Director: Ira Sachs
A single impulsive affair sends three lives spinning in Passages, Ira Sachs's sharp-edged Paris drama about a filmmaker who can't stop chasing new feelings, whatever the cost to the people who love him.
What is Passages about?
Tomas, a filmmaker living in Paris with his husband Martin, wraps a shoot and celebrates at a party where he meets Agathe, a schoolteacher, and begins a relationship with her almost on a whim. He tells Martin about it immediately, expecting understanding, and instead sets off a slow unraveling of the marriage neither man is prepared for. As Tomas moves between both relationships without ever quite settling into either, Martin starts to build a life of his own, and Agathe is left navigating the consequences of a romance that was never entirely hers to control. Ira Sachs shoots the fallout in long, unhurried scenes that favor blunt conversation over melodrama, watching Tomas's self-absorption ripple outward until everyone around him is forced to decide what they're willing to tolerate.
Cast & crew
Franz Rogowski plays Tomas with a restless, almost childlike energy that makes his selfishness oddly magnetic rather than simply repellent, while Ben Whishaw gives Martin a quieter, more guarded register that shifts noticeably once he stops waiting for Tomas to change. Adèle Exarchopoulos rounds out the triangle as Agathe, bringing a grounded clarity to a character who could easily have been reduced to a plot device.
Context & significance
Passages premiered in 2023 and quickly drew attention for its frank, unfiltered depiction of a bisexual love triangle, a rarity in mainstream festival cinema. Ira Sachs, known for intimate relationship dramas, wrote the screenplay with Mauricio Zacharias and shot the film largely on location in Paris, giving the story a lived-in, unglamorous texture. Critics singled out the performances and the film's refusal to moralize about any of its three central characters.
Where & how to watch
Passages is available on K-Time with a Farsi dub and Farsi subtitles, giving Persian-speaking viewers full access to the film's dialogue-driven storytelling. The page itself is free to read, and streaming the film requires only a free K-Time account login, part of a Farsi-first viewing experience built for the diaspora.