SLAMDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 2025 REVIEW! The best way I can describe Yun Xie’s feature film debut, Under the Burning Sun, is as a young woman’s mythical odyssey to get an abortion. Before you get too excited or completely shut the movie down, know that while its subject matter is politically controversial, it’s not exactly that kind of story. In the end, I love movies that I can wrestle with.
Our story begins in an arid desert wasteland. In seconds, Mowanza (Stephanie Pardi) gets the bad news: she’s pregnant. She heads to the local health clinic, where the doctor confirms she is twelve weeks in. When she asks for an abortion, the doctor abruptly refuses and demands that she leave. In this land, abortion is illegal, and Plan B can only be bought on the Black Market.
Mowanza is in bad shape, and it doesn’t help that she lives in a Mad Max-like hellscape. All she owns is her car, a plastic water bottle, and a few dollars. Her only hope for an abortion is Iropus—a distant land with lenient abortion laws. The journey is perilous, with scorching desert heat, a constant search for affordable water, and unpredictable strangers along the way.
Hoping to find water, Mowanza comes across a makeshift nunnery. When the sisters discover she is headed to Iropus, they kick her to the streets. Only the mother superior shows compassion, offering her water and helping start her car. With each stop, Mowanza runs into another woman or girl discarded by life: a young woman dumped by her boyfriend, a little girl abandoned by her parents, or a young wife, Mavis (Stevie Kincheloe), beaten by her husband. In need of car repair, Mowanza develops a relationship with Mavis.
“…a young woman’s mythical odyssey to get an abortion.”
Under the Burning Sun is an example of good sci-fi storytelling, which is almost non-existent in this modern era. It harkens back to my love of The Twilight Zone and Star Trek. Writer/director Yun Xie delves into the subject of abortion as it splits off into issues of agency. Mowanza is pregnant after a sexual assault. She finds herself stranded, without access to food, shelter, or human compassion.
What Under the Burning Sun does right is present a side of the abortion debate in a way that fosters compassion and empathy for the protagonist. Because it’s set in a futuristic world, the plight of the women in the story can be pushed further than if it were in a modern setting. Better yet, Yun Xie avoids preaching and compels you to wrestle with the subject matter. Also, when you are politically invested in the topic, the film’s ending is almost always a foregone conclusion. The ending of Under the Burning Sun is a storytelling surprise that I’m still wrestling with. The film is much more about the value of women not only from society’s viewpoint but also from Mowanza’s value she sees in herself.
Stephanie Pardi gives an absolutely stunning performance as Mowanza. Like her character, Pardi looks physically uncomfortable on screen, powerfully impacting the dream sequences. We feel every bit of energy her character expends constantly as she tries to get back on her feet. Director Yun Xie also makes effective use of her desert environment as it intertwines itself with her storyline.
Under the Burning Sun is the kind of sci-fi that lingers long after you leave the theater. Yun Xie crafts a nightmarish and eerily familiar world, forcing us to confront agency, survival, and the quiet resilience of those society leaves behind with a powerhouse performance by Stephanie Pardi and a gut punch of an ending that refuses easy answers. Great movies make you feel—feel anything, whether good or bad.
Under the Burning Sun screened at the 2025 Slamdance Film Festival.
"…a gut punch of an ending that refuses easy answers."
