Neon Acquires North American Rights to Palme d’Or Winner Julia Ducournau’s ‘Alpha’

Neon has acquired the North American rights to award-winning filmmaker Julia Ducournau’s (Titane, Raw) genre-defying film Alpha.

Leading the cast are Golshifteh Farahani (The Patience Stone, Paterson) and Tahar Rahim (The Mauritanian, A Prophet), with principal photography on the film commencing next fall.

Producers are Jean des Forêts and Amelie Jacquis of Petit Film and Eric & Nicolas Altmayer of Mandarin & Compagnie, with Frakas Productions co-producing.

Charades and FilmNation Entertainment are handling sales in the rest of the world during the Cannes Film Festival and market. 

The deal was negotiated by Neon’s president of acquisitions & production Jeff Deutchman with Charades’ Carole Baraton and FilmNation Entertainment’s CEO Glen Basner on behalf of the filmmakers.

The deal marks Neon’s second collaboration with Ducournau following Titane, which the studio picked up ahead of its premiere in Cannes in 2021 and went on to win the Palme d’Or.

Neon also recently acquired the worldwide rights to Osgood Perkins’ Keeper, starring Tatiana Maslany and Rossif Sutherland and Steven Soderbergh’s Presence.

In Cannes, the company will also be premiering Anora In Competition, the highly-anticipated new film from Sean Baker (The Florida Project, Red Rocket) starring Mikey Madison.

Since its inception, Neon has grossed over $200m at the box office, including on Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite.