Sea of Trees: Matthew McConaughey movie gets mysterious trailer

At last year’s Cannes Film Festival, Gus Van Sant’s drama The Sea of Trees earned one of the year’s most notorious premieres, debuting to a loud chorus of boos. Since then, the suicide-themed drama has shuffled between distributors, moving from Roadside Attractions and Lionsgate to A24. Now, A24 has released an official trailer, showing a new look at star Matthew McConaughey and his journey to Japan’s notorious “Suicide Forest.”

McConaughey stars as a professor named Arthur Brennan, who travels to Japan to reflect on his relationship with his wife, Joan (Naomi Watts). There, he meets a stranger named Takumi (Ken Watanabe), and the two men find themselves bonding over discussions of love, death, and spirituality.

“I say another title for this film is ‘You’ve got to go through annihilation to get to salvation,’” McConaughey told EW back in 2014. “It’s one hell of a survival story.”

The Sea of Trees will hit theaters on Aug. 26.