Julia Ducournau Returns With ‘Alpha’: First Trailer Reveals a Dystopian Infection Drama
“If something happens to you, it happens to me.”
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Julia Ducournau is the French writer and director who created the horror movies Raw (2016) and Titane (2021). Her next movie is Alpha, an “infection thriller” about a mother and daughter. Alpha premiered at the Cannes Film Festival where it received an 11.5-minute standing ovation.
The movie premieres in the UK on November 14. It has a US distributor, NEON, but a US release date has not yet been announced. Ahead of the UK release, the film’s first trailer dropped Wednesday morning:
The official synopsis for Alpha reads: “Alpha, 13, is a troubled teenager who lives alone with her mother. Their world comes crashing down the day she comes home from school with a tattoo on her arm.” Variety added some additional context, saying “The film seems to be intended as an AIDS allegory, depicting a virus spread by sharing needles and bodily fluids. Though a body horror touch is added with the skin of those infected turning to marble, the film is mainly a surreal drama. As the girl’s mother begins to fear her daughter is infected, memories of her late brother, an addict who died of the disease, make her increasingly paranoid.”
Previously, Ducournau became the second female director to win Canne’s highest prize, the Palme d’Or, for Titane in 2021. Jane Campion previously won for The Piano in 1993, but there were two Palme d’Or winners that year. Ducournau is the first solo female winner of the prize.
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