Find Your Friends - Director Izabel Pakzad

Amber and her four best friends flee Los Angeles for a girls’ trip in Joshua Tree, only to find themselves unwelcome in a desert town simmering with quiet hostility. As isolation sets in and encounters with aggressive locals grow more threatening, festering resentments within the group begin to surface. What begins as fun and reckless escape spirals into a violent struggle for control and survival, as past wounds and present dangers collide in a night that turns their trip into a revenge-fueled nightmare. Featuring a stellar cast that includes; Bella Thorne, Chloe Cherry, Helena Howard, Sophia Ali, and Zión Moreno, Find Your Friends, director and writer Izabel Pakzad joins us to talk about why she wanted to tell this story about the trauma and fear women are forced to regularly navigate and how this film is a loud and clear expression of resistance.

About the filmmaker - Izabel Pakzad is an Iranian-Greek American filmmaker, writer, and actor. She recently wrote and directed her debut feature film, Find Your Friends (2026), starring Helena Howard (Madeline's Madeline,) Bella Thorne (Divinity,) Chloe Cherry (Euphoria,) Zion Moreno (Gossip Girl,) Sophia Ali (Uncharted,) and Chris Bauer (The Wire.) Find Your Friends had its world premiere at Fantasia Film Festival as one of the festival's headliners, and additionally screened at TIFF as one of 10 Industry Selects, followed by its U.S. premiere at Fantastic Fest in Texas, where Forbes named it one of 5 "Must-See Films from Fantastic Fest.” The film went on to screen at the Sitges Film Festival and Torino Film Festival. Pakzad’s short film Don’t Worry, It’s Gonna Be OK (2022), which she directed, wrote and starred in, was an official selection at the Oscar qualifying Raindance Film Festival and Hollyshorts, and also won Best Short Film at the L.A. Film Festival. Previously, Pakzad produced and starred in the independent feature, Thena, opposite Chris Bauer, Virginia Gardner (Fall), Brian Marc (White Girl) Will Peltz (Euphoria), Dakotas Lotus (Cami and Coop), and Malia Baker (The Baby-Sitters Club,). Thena had its world premiere at Taormina Film Festival in June 2025.