Julia Ducournau & Tahar Rahim On Alpha: An Empire Podcast Interview Special

The Empire Film Podcast

Bauer Media

Tv & Film, Film Reviews

4.6 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 14 November 2025

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Alpha is the third film from the brilliant French filmmaker, Julia Ducournau, following on from her titanic debut, Raw, and her raw follow-up, Titane (which won the Palme D'Or, no less!). A tale of an unusual epidemic and generational trauma, there's much going on above and below the surface, which we get into in this interview special, as Jamie Graham sits down on Zoom with Ducournau and the actor Tahar Rahim, who plays the title character's drug-addicted uncle. It's a great interview, and if you fancy going to see Alpha after listening to this, it's out now in cinemas across the UK. Enjoy.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You can't do much in under five minutes. Boil an egg. Sure. Cook a roast dinner? No chance.
0:06.3	But comparing car insurance prices with mustard.co.uk, easy. See what you could save in just a few minutes.
0:13.6	Click mustard.com.com. UK. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. See website for details.
0:20.5	What's on TV? The answer is a lot. There's never been more choice ever what to put on the box with an abundance of great new shows, but you can miss them all if you don't know where to look. And that's where the pilot TV podcast comes in, your essential guide to every show that matters. Each week, we sift through the very best in prestige TV to help you decide
0:37.7	what's worth spending your time on and what isn't. So join me, James Dyer, as well as venerable
0:42.0	TV critics Boyd Hilton and Kay Ribeiro, and let us help take the stress out of your downtime.
0:47.1	The Pilot TV podcast, because you can't watch everything. Hello, Paul, I'm Chris Hewitt, and welcome to another Empire podcast interview special.
1:10.6	Julia DuCourneau is the brilliant French director behind Raw and the Palmed Door winning Titan,
1:16.6	two films that earned her a reputation as the Queen of Body Horror and perhaps the modern air to David Cronerberg.
1:24.0	Her third film, Alpha, is out now in the UK and is something of a change of pace as it tells a story of a young girl, Alpha, played by Melissa Boros.
1:33.5	It is a slower, more meditative, less gory film than Raw or Titan, charting Alva's emotional connection with her mother, played by Golshifte Farahane, and her uncle, played by Tahar Rahim,
1:45.6	who you know of course from A Prophet and Madam Webb.
1:49.0	In fact, Rahim was paired with DuCourne for this interview with her very own Jamie Graham,
1:54.1	which was conducted when the film played at the London Film Festival last month.
1:58.3	They were in a London hotel room, Jamie was on his laptop, but hopefully
2:02.2	the sound will be okay. It is an absolutely cracking interview this one, so let's get to it.
2:09.3	Enjoy.
2:10.6	A Rayo Original podcast. Hiya, it's Gemma Atkinson. And you know what they say? You should
2:16.5	never work with animals, kids,
2:18.3	or your Spanish partner of almost eight years.
2:21.2	Eight happy years.
2:22.6	Oh, yeah.
	...

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