09/09/2026 - VENICE 2026: The French director exorcises his fears – and ours – in this political thriller, which toys with reality and fiction

(© 2026 Fabrizio de Gennaro for Cineuropa - fadege.it, @fadege.it)

In Alexandre Smia’s Jupiter, the Russian aggression against Ukraine shows no sign of stopping, and the newly elected French president (Denis Menochet) heads to “Jupiter”: a bunker hidden beneath the Élysée Palace. Smia breaks down his Venice out-of-competition title, in which the stakes are higher than ever.

Cineuropa: These kinds of political films… We don’t get them that often. The closest I’ve come in recent years was watching Armando Iannucci.
Alexandre Smia: Iannucci is a good example, even though he’s a master of satire and comedy, and that’s not what I’m doing. But there is this out-of-control rhythm in his work that we share. Things unfold quickly in this type of crisis. It’s not a French tradition, in terms of cinema, to keep up with contemporary history. It’s different on TV – I used to work on The Bureau, which was all about that. In the 1970s, we had Costa-Gavras or Verneuil, and it’s something we’ve lost. I regret it. My desire to become a filmmaker came from watching these films: Alan Pakula, Lumet... It was like watching history unfold. It was obvious that in Jupiter, I would focus on that. But you are right – when we were financing it, we had to convince many people.

You play with reality and fiction. Russia invades Ukraine, yet the current US president is a woman – which one assumes many would love to see.
I had to respect the geopolitical balance of power, but also create another reality for the film. Denis Menochet is one of my favourite actors working today – he also doesn’t resemble any previous French presidents, which was important. I started writing the film before Trump. It was during the Biden administration. Trump is already a fictional character, in a way, so I wanted to put him aside. I also wanted to consider the consequences of the American’s misogynist position. Then there’s their isolationism. We had to wait for Pearl Harbor to get them to respond during World War II.

Are you referencing any actual politicians?
When I worked with the actors, I gave them specific references. With Reda Kateb, who plays the French Minister of Defence, we talked about Kissinger and McNamara. With Dominique Blanc – the Foreign Affairs Minister – it was all about Madeleine Albright. I didn’t want them to play these people, obviously, but rather to think about their personalities, and how they talked or behaved.

The president is dealing with personal loss and that terrifying situation. Maybe after the first screenings, people will ask: “Do you expect our politicians to take a more resolute stand?”
I read every biography of the French presidents and found out that De Gaulle and Jacques Chirac had something in common: they both lost a daughter. I became a father of a daughter myself, so I found myself thinking about this kind of tragedy. You start to look at his political trajectory in light of this loss. I wanted to explore this because we don’t often mention the human factor when we talk about politicians. We call them ambitious and starved for power. We don’t call them human.

In France, an election is coming up in a few months. It’s important to remind people that we give some politicians access to nuclear weapons. I’ve never voted with this in mind. You vote for a personality, for a programme. But they also gain this power, so it’s important to vote for someone responsible.

He might be responsible, but he’s stuck in a bunker with way too many people. Did you enjoy making a film that’s so claustrophobic?
When I started researching nuclear deterrence, I asked myself some basic questions: if a crisis like this happened tomorrow, where would he go? With whom? That’s how I found out about the PC Jupiter underneath the Élysée Palace. The film is based there because that’s where they would go in real life.

I’ve always loved films like 12 Angry Men because it’s pure mise-en-scène. The tension is built naturally because we are there with these people, and we feel the suffocation. Also, so many things happen off-screen. The audience need to use their imagination. You can’t tell them everything, which you’d have to do on TV.

This film reflects many of the fears people have today. Did making it calm you down? Did you get it out of your system?
It all started with fear. The movie is about the repercussions of the war in Ukraine on France. It made us realise the reality of the nuclear threat. Putin made a frontal threat to anyone who wants to step into the conflict. It really hit me. France has had nuclear power since the 1960s, but it’s no longer a passive spectator of nuclear deterrence as it was in the past. I had the chance to work with experts, and I learned a lot. I feel that by understanding this, I can control my fear now. As German philosopher Hans Jonas said: “The prophecy of doom is made to avert its coming.”