Alpha

A body horror about the trauma of growing up and a strange epidemic that turns people into marble statues. The protagonist is 13-year-old Alpha, who gets a tattoo of the letter “A,” horrifying her mother — what if it means her daughter is infected too? Gradually, her life begins to unravel, transforming into a strange, barely explainable nightmare.

Last time, Julia Ducournau won the Palme d’Or at Cannes for the scandalous Titane. Her new film is less provocative and received no major awards, though the director herself has called it “her most personal and profound work,” and we’ve been eagerly awaiting its release. It’s only loosely a horror film — more like an anxious “dream within a dream,” where it’s hard to understand what exactly is happening, but just as hard to shake off what you’ve seen.