One of the most outstanding filmmakers in contemporary genre cinema is our guest: Julia Ducournau has reimagined the horror genre from a European perspective in all its multilayered aspects, pushing its boundaries with both precision and conviction in works such as GRAVE and TITANE. On the occasion of her new film ALPHA, a conversation with Ducournau offers the opportunity to explore what can still be added to a reality already marked by unvarnished monstrosities. Fear as an aesthetic force, intimacy and the body within a context of mythological intensity—and the sheer pleasure in cinematic excess—may in the cinema of the “uncanny” serve as a portal to radical reflection.