Still 1 Alpha © Douwe Hennink

Source: Douwe Hennink

‘Alpha’

Denmark-based sales company LevelK has boarded Jan-Willem van Ewijk’s Alpha ahead of its world premiere on Wednesday, September 4 in Giornate degli Autori at Venice Film Festival.

Alpha is the fourth feature from Dutch filmmaker Jan-Willem van Ewijk. It follows a man whose restorative Alpine retreat is disturbed by the arrival of his father, with the pair embarking on a perilous ski tour.

The father and son roles are played by real-life father and son Gijs Scholten van Aschat and Reinout Scholten van Aschat, with Pia Amofa also on the cast. September Film will distribute the title in the Netherlands at the beginning of 2025.

Alpha is produced by Frank Hoeve for the Netherlands’ Baldr Film, in collaboration with Switzerland’s Lomotion and Slovenia’s Staragara. Backers include VPRO, SRF Swiss Radio and Television, Blue Entertainment, the Netherlands Film Fund, Netherlands Film Production Incentive, CoBO, Slovenian Film Centre, Federal Office of Culture, Creative Europe Media, and Burgermeinde Bern.

“Alpha is Jan-Willem’s most personally engaged film, drawn from his own youth and his passion for snow sports,” said Hoeve. “We consider Alpha as a contemporary ode of a son for his father and with that, an ode to nature too. Despite our growing disconnection from nature and our increased reliance on technology, nature is still everywhere, inside us and around us. Not to forget, it always has the final word!” 

The independent Giornate degli Autori section runs parallel to La Biennale di Venezia, both closing on Saturday, September 7.

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