Film
- Year
- 2025
- Runtime
- 2h 8m
- Classification
- M/16
- Genre
- Drama
- Language
- French (France)
- Countries
- France and Belgium
After winning the Palme d 'Or in 2021 with Titane, Julia Ducournau returns to the Cannes Competition with Alpha, a film that is more intimate but faithful to her authorial obsessions.
Alpha, a 13-year-old girl, lives with her mother and faces the upheavals of adolescence. One night, she returns from a party with a tattoo - a seemingly banal gesture that unleashes a wave of tension and reveals hidden fragilities. Set between the 1980s and 1990s, the film introduces a fictional epidemic that evokes the AIDS crisis, acting as a metaphor for fear and stigma.
If Ducournau moves away from the graphic horror that made her famous in Raw and Titane, she nevertheless explores the transformation of the body and the emotional turbulence of coming of age, in a visceral reflection on desire, identity and maternal heritage.
Session as part of the French Film Festival 2025.
"Organised by the Il Sorpasso Association, the French Film Festival is a platform for meeting and sharing between France, Portugal and the French-speaking world, celebrating the artistic excellence, innovation and cultural richness that make French cinema an essential reference.
The event is organised in partnership with the French Embassy in Portugal, the Institut Français du Portugal and the Alliances Françaises network in Portugal. The festival is also part of MaisFRANÇA, the programme of contemporary French creation in Portugal."
