Top 100 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2018: #41. Alice Winocour’s Proxima

Proxima

Cesar Award Winning writer-director Alice Winocour (Best Screenplay for 2015’s Mustang, shared with Deniz Gamze Erguven) landed a Special Screening at Cannes for her 2012 debut Augustine, a period piece which starred Soko and Vincent Lindon (and also netted a Cesar nod for Best First Film and Best Costume Design). She followed that up with Disorder (aka Maryland) in 2015, a romantically tinged PTSD thriller which starred Diane Kruger and Matthias Schoenaerts (and has been optioned to be remade in English by James Mangold). Wincour’s latest project, tentatively titled Proxima, is her highest profile yet. Set to star Eva Green, the film follows an astronaut with the European Space Agency (ESA) who is preparing to go on a one year mission to the International Space Station, but must first endure a rigorous training period, which involves navigating a separation from her 7-year-old daughter. German actor Lars Eidinger (Everyone Else; Clouds of Sils Maria) is set to co-star.

Release Date/Prediction: Winocour has premiered her last two films at Cannes, landing Disorder (read review) in Un Certain Regard (the same year as her co-written effort Mustang played in Directors’ Fortnight). However, the nine-week shoot of the heavily-researched Proxima won’t begin until January, making a comp slot at Venice more likely to be courted.