EXCLUSIVE
With Baikonur the only place in
the world where manned missions are
launched, Proxima is a real kick in the
space nuts for Hollywood sci-fi. “It’s
always NASA and it’s always the same
representation of those really strong
men, this idea of a conquest,” sighs
Winocour. “There is no weakness. It’s
really an American vision of the world.
I thought it was really interesting to
show that space was not only American,
but also Russian and European.”
Featuring a varied cast – including
Matt Dillon and Loveless star Aleksey
Fateev – Winocour was keen to focus on
the female experience. “In American
films, there are strong female characters- like Sigourney Weaver in Alien or
Sandra Bullock in Gravity. But [in] all
of those films, the women never have
I
think it’s important to tell stories that have never been told,”
French writer-director Alice Winocour (Disorder) explains to Teasers
in a swish Parisian hotel. And her latest film, Proxima, does exactly
that, offering up a hyper-realistic portrayal of a female astronaut –
played by Eva Green – as she trains for her first mission, blasting off from
the Baikonur Cosmodrome in southern Kazakhstan to the International
Space Station.kids. Or when they do, the kids are dead.
There are no kids to divert the character
from her original mission. But in real
life, women have other missions.”
Green’s Sarah, a divorced mother,
finds the emotional pull of leaving
her daughter Stella behind for a yearhugely difficult to deal with. “I wanted
to talk about the idea of separation
between a mother and a daughter, and
it’s something I know very well. I am
myself a mother and my daughter is the
same age as the character, and of course
I am a daughter. I wanted that to be the
centre of the movie.”
What particularly impresses about
Proxima is the way it plunges you into
the little-seen world of the astronaut
training, with Winocour filming at the
European Space Agency in Cologne and
the Star City facility near Moscow, as
well as Baikonur. “On those military
bases, we were considered as European
astronauts.” In Kazakhstan, she even
got to see – and film – a live launch.
“To see the real launch of a rocket, it’s
something really incredible.”
After spending two years researching
and writing, Winocour inevitably drew
comparisons to her own profession.
“We don’t risk our lives. But being a
director is like being on a mission.”
She cites Dillon’s astronaut Mike
Shannon. “When he says, ‘If the idea
of sitting on several million tonnes
of explosives is frightening to you,
then maybe you’re in the wrong
profession’... I feel a director could say
the same at the beginning of a shoot!
So many things that can fuck up!” JMETA | 8 MAY / PROXIMA OPENS NEXT MONTH.SPACE CADET
PROXIMA I Alice Winocour boldly goes where
no woman has gone before...
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GAMESRADARCOM/TOTALFILM APRIL 2020 | TOTAL FILM