If you don’t know already, a small film festival is happening in France this week. Yep, it’s Cannes time, where the 2025 roadmap for Prestige Cinema will be unveiled to the world. There’s a lot to be excited about (new Kelly Reichardt! Lynne Ramsey! Joachim Trier! Spike Lee! Wes Anderson!), but what we’re most looking forward to is Julia Ducournau’s Alpha, which sees the director of Raw and Titane set her focus on a phantasmagoric parable about the AIDS epidemic. NEON dropped a trailer for it ahead of its premiere later on Monday, and it looks deeply upsetting. And, of course, right up our alley.
Peep it:
We’re going to excerpt this lovely little commentary on Alpha by Tarik Khaldi from the official Cannes program instead of the two-sentence synopsis we’ve gotten from NEON:
“After her Palme d’or in 2021 for ‘Titane,’ Julia Ducournau returns to Competition with ‘Alpha,’ a more intimate film, but not abandoning her obsessions as a filmmaker.
Alpha is 13 years old. She lives alone with her mother and is going through the turmoil of adolescence. When she returns home from a party with a tattoo, something seemingly innocuous sends shock waves through her household. The film is set between the 1980s and 1990s. Julia Ducournau introduces a fictional epidemic that is clearly reminiscent of AIDS, which is in turn evocative of ‘Mauvais Sang (‘Bad Blood’)’ by Leos Carax.
The director, herself a child when HIV first appeared, recalls ‘a contagious fear, a sense of shame among a whole section of the population, and the way society refused to deal with the problem head-on and admit that we were all affected.’ And in an interview with Vanity Fair, she added: ‘It is a commentary on the way this fear spread, and the impact it has had on my generation.‘
‘Alpha’ may have strayed from the graphic body horror that was the hallmark of ‘Titane’ and ‘Grave’ (Raw), but Julia Ducournau continues to explore bodily changes, particularly those occurring during adolescence. Mélissa Boros plays Alpha, following in the footsteps of Garance Marillier (‘Grave (Raw)’) and Agathe Rousselle (‘Titane’): a body undergoing transformation, at the center of chaos.
Playing opposite the single mother, who is played by Golshifteh Farahani, is another key character, Amin, Alpha’s uncle, who has been infected with the virus. Julia Ducournau has cast Tahar Rahim in this role, requiring him to undergo a radical physical transformation — the polar opposite of the muscle-bound Vincent Lindon in ‘Titane.’ The actor, who lost almost 20 kilos, caused quite a stir when promoting the biopic ‘Monsieur Aznavour,’ offering a glimpse of the shadow cast by ‘Alpha.'”
Alpha will be released in France in August and will make its way stateside in October.