Top 150 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2019: #34. Proxima – Alice Winocour

Proxima

French director Alice Winocour makes her English language debut with her third feature, the French-German co-pro Proxima. Eva Green headlines an impressive international cast as an astronaut set to embark on a year-long space mission on the International Space Station, supported by the likes of Matt Dillon, Lars Eidinger, and Russian actor Aleksey Fateev (who starred in Kantemir Balagov’s Closeness, 2017). Isabelle Madelaine, who produced both of Winocour’s previous films, is on board with Dharamsala as well as Emilie Tisne for Darius Films while the project is co-produced by France 3 Cinema, Pathe, and Germany’s Pandora. Winocour’s 2012 debut Augustine, which starred Vincent Lindon and Soko, premiered as a Special Screening in the Cannes Critics’ Week and was nominated for a Best First Feature Cesar. Her 2015 sophomore film Disorder (read review) which will eventually receive an English language remake courtesy of James Mangold premiered at the 2015 Un Certain Regard, while Winocour also co-wrote the 2015 Oscar nominated debut of Deniz Gamze Erguven, Mustang.

Gist: Reuniting with her Disorder scribe, Jean-Stephane Bron, Proxima the narrative concerns a female astronaut living in Cologne, working for the European Space Agency. Her relationship with her seven-year-old daughter becomes the focus after she’s called away sooner than expected to join a year-long space mission.

Release Date/Prediction: Winocour’s 45 day shoot commenced in February 2018, with shooting locations in France, Kazakhstan, Germany, and Russia. While Cannes seems a given considering both of Winocour’s previous projects debuted there, and where she could logically return in a likely sidebar, the 2019 Berlin competition might also be a lucrative slot.