Interview: Alice Winocour on Disorder, PTSD, and Joining the Academy

by Nathaniel R

Alice Winocour, writer/director of "Disorder"The absence of strong female representation behind the camera has been a constant sore subject this past year in the world of cinema. But there are shining exceptions to the rule. Though Alice Winocour began making shorts a dozen years ago and released her first feature in 2013, the 40 year old French director really broke through with the one-two punch of Mustang (which she co-wrote) and Disorder (which she co-wrote and directed) last summer at Cannes. Mustang went on to an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film (and much love - including right here). After serving on the Cannes International Critics Week jury this summer (one year after her own breakthrough double) she's making the rounds promoting Disorder which has finally hit US screens after its festival run.

I had the pleasure of seeing both films nearly back to back at AFI last November and I was stunned that the same person was involved with both. She admits that "it was funny to switch from one film to the other" during their festival runs. They really couldn't be more different, one a memoirish feminist drama and the other a tightly wound home invasion thriller. I had the pleasure of sitting down with her in Manhattan this month to talk about her big year.

NATHANIEL: Since you've written a few features was Disorder a conscious choice to show your directorial chops? Thrillers are not generally thought of as writer's pictures. 

ALICE WINOCOUR: Writing is an unconscious process. You don't think about it like that. You just fall in love with the subject or character and then you start to tell the story...

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AFI Awards: Mustang, James White, and More...

Deniz & AliceThe Los Angeles AFI Festival, presented by Audi, ends tonight with the premiere of Paramount's The Big Short with it's all star (male) cast. But two women we're instant new fans of were the winners. First time feature director Deniz Gamze Ergüven and second time feature director Alice Winocour both had films in the fest (Mustang, which they cowrote and Ergüven directed, and Disorder, which was titled Maryland when it first debuted at Cannes, which Winocour wrote and directed.) Mustang opens in NY & LA a week from tomorrow. Disorder is due in March next year. They're both very much worth seeing so keep an eye on these two very talented women. I know we will. 

NEW AUTEURS AWARDS

Jury:  Inkoo Kang (TheWrap), Sheri Linden (The Hollywood Reporter, Los Angeles Times) and Nigel M. Smith (The Guardian).

New Auteurs Grand Jury Award: Land and Shade (César Augusto Acevedo)
The jury cited it's  "visual eloquence, formal rigor and emotional power" in painting a portrait of a rural family in Colombia and its observations about the explotation of the poor and environmental degradation

more prizes follow...

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AFI Fest: Disorder

Kieran, here reporting from AFI Fest in Hollywood.

There's a moment of in Alice Winocour's Disorder (French title Maryland) where Jessie (played by Diane Kruger) tentatively and almost wordlessly embraces Vincent (Matthias Schoenaerts) from behind. It's a brief, but completely earned emotional beat, perfectly emblematic of the film's power. The film is billed as a "home invasion thriller," a description that betrays Disorder's rich textures and laser-like focus on character. 

Vincent is a former soldier turned security guard working at a villa in France, inhabited by Imad, a wealthy businessman (Percy Kemp), his wife, Jessie and their young son, Ali (Zaïd Errougui-Demonsant). Vincent is suffering from PTSD and auditory problems, a result of his time in combat, which leads to bouts of paranoia. After some kind of international business deal goes awry while Imad is out of the country, Jessie and Ali become the target of hitmen, with Vincent left to protect them. This plot description could have very quickly led to something in the vein of Taken really quickly. What we get here is something far more interesting and cinematically daring.

Matthias Schoenaerts is, in many ways, the perfect actor to put at the center of this story. More...

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