Just After Dawn (2026): What We Know About the French Sci-Fi
Just After Dawn (Juste après l'aube) is a French TV sci-fi film about astronauts returning to an empty Earth. Cast, crew, locations and what is still unclear.
Not every science fiction film arrives with a trailer war and a cinema release. Just After Dawn, originally Juste après l’aube, is a French production made for television: it premiered on 18 October 2026 at 20:50 on the Ciné+ Frisson channel, as part of Ciné+ OCS. I have not seen it and nobody I trust has reviewed it, so this is not a review, only a summary of what the public sources say.
The premise
The setup is a classic one. A crew returning from the lunar mission Atlas loses contact with Earth, attempts an emergency blind return and finds a frozen planet where humanity seems to have disappeared overnight. According to the Allociné listing, an unknown threat waits for them at first light. A regional write-up adds that the story deals with solidarity, family, responsibility and guilt, which suggests a character drama in a sci-fi wrapper.
The long road to the screen
The director is Olivier Boillot, who wrote the script with Philippe Tessier from his own story. His earlier credit is L’Île : les naufragés de la Terre perdue from 2011. The local broadcaster TL7 describes the project as fifteen years of work, which says a lot about how hard it is to get an original genre film financed outside the Hollywood system.
Futurikon produced it with Ciné+ OCS. The shoot was backed by the CNC, the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region and the Dordogne department, and the picture was shot in 4K HDR with visual effects planned from the start. The French site SF Story credits Hocus Pocus Studio with the effects.
Cast and locations
Charlie Anson plays Paul, Aïssa Maïga plays Lisa and Mehmet Kurtuluş plays Jackson. Bertrand-Xavier Corbi, Fathia Youssouf and Vincent Grass, cast as Paul’s father, complete the main list. The empty Earth is real scenery rather than a studio set, mostly in the Dordogne, with SF Story naming the Bort-les-Orgues dam and the Gratte-Bruyères site in Sérandon.
What is still unclear
Sources disagree on the runtime: Allociné says 1 h 30 min, SF Story 1 h 37 min. I found no festival screenings and nothing about distribution outside France, so I cannot say where an international audience could watch it. A US release date of 23 October 2026 appears in some databases without any detail, and I would treat it as unconfirmed.
If you are curious, expect a French-language original. I will update this page once reviews or international availability show up.