Eva Green is heading to space. The “Penny Dreadful” alumna has signed on to star in Alice Winocour’s next feature, a bilingual action-drama that centers on an astronaut. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the French writer-director is currently prepping the project.
Tentatively titled “Proxima,” the film will see Green playing an astronaut “with the European Space Agency (ESA) that is preparing to go on a one-year mission to the International Space Station (ISS), but must first face intense training as well as the impending separation from her seven-year-old daughter,” THR summarizes. Winocour described “Proxima” as being “about how you put your fears and pain into something bigger than your life.”
“The idea is also to have an astronaut that can be a superheroine and at the same time a mother, because I think in movies mothers are always very weak characters,” the “Augustine” helmer and writer observed. “It’s time that women should assume that you can be an astronaut and a mother too.”
Dharamsala is producing and Pathe will distribute “Proxima.” The space project follows on the heels of the success of “Hidden Figures.” The critically acclaimed story — which has grossed over $230 million worldwide — shines a spotlight on Katherine G. Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe), brilliant women of color who played an instrumental role in the space race while working at NASA.
Winocour won a César award last year for co-writing “Mustang” with its director, Deniz Gamze Ergüven. The Oscar-nominated coming-of-age story follows repressed sisters living in Turkey. She most recently directed “Disorder,” a home-invasion thriller. “In making the film I wanted to explore the category of genre films, which is generally reserved for male directors. In fact, I used aspects of genre film to create a variation on genre. I also included many of my own personal feelings and experiences,” Winocour told us. “I wanted to show that there are no boundaries for women directors and prove that women are legitimate choices to direct all kinds of films, including war films or thrillers. There should be no boundaries for women directors.”
Green’s credits include “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children,” “300: Rise of an Empire,” and “Casino Royale.” She stars alongside Alicia Vikander in Lisa Langseth’s “Euphoria,” a drama about sisters currently screening at the Toronto International Film Festival.
