New details and image from Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity

Alfonso Cuarón has been talking about his latest work Gravity, which finds itself in the special position of being shown at the Venice Film Festival and the San Diego Comic Convention.

The film follows Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock), a medical engineer on her first space shuttle mission, alongside veteran astronaut Matt Kowalsky (George Clooney). Of course things don't go to plan. The real life production has been arduous too with Cuarón spending nearly five years perfecting the look of zero gravity.

"We wanted to shoot the whole film showing zero gravity with the actors moving in a choreographic way," say Cuarón, who most will know as the director of 2004's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. "This has never been done before. It was a journey of learning. But it looks pretty darn good."

Not only was it hard for the production team, but it seems it was tough on the actors too.

"Sandra had to be in tremendous shape for this kind of filming," says producer David Heyman. "When she was not shooting she was either spending time with her son or working out for these scenes."

"She's confronted with the idea that Earth is so far away. She can see the whole Earth and she doesn't belong to it," says Cuarón. "What is really scary for people is being lost or alone in the immensity of the void."

Here's the synopsis, followed by a new image from the film:

"Sandra Bullock plays Dr. Ryan Stone, a brilliant medical engineer on her first shuttle mission, with veteran astronaut Matt Kowalsky (George Clooney) in command of his last flight before retiring. But on a seemingly routine spacewalk, disaster strikes. The shuttle is destroyed, leaving Stone and Kowalsky completely alone–tethered to nothing but each other and spiraling out into the blackness. The deafening silence tells them they have lost any link to Earth…and any chance for rescue. As fear turns to panic, every gulp of air eats away at what little oxygen is left. But the only way home may be to go further out into the terrifying expanse of space."


Co-written with his son Jonás, Gravity will open the prestigious Venice Film Festival on August 28th in Italy, and Cuarón will show off footage at SDCC, which runs from July 18th-21st.