PROXIMA

France

Director: Alice Winocour

Cast: Eva Green, Zélie Boulant-Lemesle, Matt Dillon, Lars Eidinger, Aleksey Fateev

Genre: Drama

107 minutes – French, German, English with English subtitles (2019)

Engineer and astronaut Sarah Loreau lives alone with Stella, her seven-year-old daughter, when she is selected for the Proxima space programme, for which she will spend a year in space — the last mission before Mars. While following the rigorous training imposed on astronauts, the only woman in the midst of men, she prepares especially for the separation from her daughter.  Sarah feels guilty that she cannot spend more time with her child, and training regulations complicate the mother-daughter relationship. Exactly where do her commitments and priorities lie? Career or Family?  There are choices to be made….

Alice Winocour builds on her meticulously crafted body of work with this incisive drama, with Eva Green in impeccable form in the role of the astronaut, a role for which she earned won Best Actress at France’s annual César Awards in 2020.

‘Winocour has left an indelible mark on cinematic space travel, by viewing it through a feminist lens and placing more emphasis on the struggles on earth rather than the journey to the stars and beyond.’
Faisal Al-Jadir, Film Inquiry

‘Green is at a career-best as the stoic Sarah, simultaneously determined and on the edge of breaking – you forget just how exceptionally subtle she can be’.
Katie Goh, Little White Lies

‘Winocour’s film is without hesitation one of the best films of the year’.
Ben Rolph, Discussing Film