A film by Jan-Willem van Ewijk
Netherlands/Switzerland/Slovenia 2024, 104 min
Followed by a film talk with Jan-Willem van Ewijk, Reinout Scholten van Aschat and Gijs Scholten van Aschat.
After the death of his mother, 31-year-old Dutchman Rein moves to a small village in the Alps to be in nature, meditate and work as a snowboard instructor. The tranquillity of his retreat is over when his extrovert father Gijs comes to visit. Gijs soon finds himself at the centre of a ski tour with Rein and his friends. He ends up flirting with Rein’s new girlfriend Laura, making his son feel more and more marginalised. It doesn’t take long before Rein has had enough. He pulls his father out of the group and they continue their hike up the mountain alone. The tension between the two men is palpable. Gijs feels increasingly uncomfortable on the steep and dangerous terrain, but Rein pushes on to the summit, ignoring his father’s pleas to turn back. It’s not long before nature strikes hard, turning their petty battle for supremacy into a full-blown fight for survival.
Alpha. is a film about the transformation of masculinity in our society. It gradually strips a father and his son of their modern Western privileges, their technology, their personal sensitivities and their egos, leaving them naked in the face of nature.
Awarded the Europa Cinemas Label at Venice Days 2024.
Director & screenplay: Jan-Willem van Ewijk – Cinematographer: Douwe Hennink – Editors: Sander Vos & Eline Bakker – Music: Ella van der Woude – With Reinout Scholten van Aschat, Gijs Scholten van Aschat, Pia Amofa-Antwi, Kaija Ledergerber and others. World Sales: LevelK, levelk.dk
Jan-Willem van Ewijk
Jan-Willem van Ewijk worked as an airplane designer and investment banker before quitting his job and pursuing his dream of making films. He wrote, directed, edited and starred alongside his former banking colleagues, friends and family in his debut feature Nu. which received a special mention for best debut feature at the Dutch Film Festival. JW’s second feature Atlantic., about a Moroccan windsurfer, was selected for the Sundance Writer’s Lab and premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. After the pandemic, JW shot two features back-to-back; the America-based Pacifica., about a father who loses his teenage daughter in a shooting, and Alpha., the story of a father and son facing disaster in the high Alps, which was selected for Venice Days. JW is currently working on his first science fiction film Cupola.
