The Cannes Film Festival has a long history of fruitful connections with Belgian directors (most notably the Dardenne brothers), to the extent that in 2017, as part of the 70th anniversary of the event, the Cannes Classics sidebar hosted a documentary on that very topic. A year later, a young filmmaker named Lukas Dhont, then in his late 20s, made waves in the Un Certain Regard section with his feature debut Girl, loosely based on the experiences of transgender dancer Nora Monsecour. Dhont, who had befriended her a decade earlier, aimed to tell her story as truthfully as possible, avoiding the usual trappings of on-screen transgender depictions, and the Cannes juries were convinced by this approach: in addition to the Un Certain Regard (genderless) acting award for Victor Polster’s performance as Lara, the film also won the Caméra d’Or as the best feature debut, as well as the Queer Palm. And while the movie did attract its fair share of criticism from queer and trans writers for the use, however well-intentioned, of certain tropes (which Monsecour has defended as being true to her specific experience), it went on to be chosen as Belgium’s submission for the Academy Awards. Additionally, Dhont was included in the 2019 edition of Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list for European entertainment.
Four years later, history repeats itself with Close, Dhont’s second film, loosely rooted in his own boyhood experiences as well as a psychological study on intimacy between male teenagers. This time, Cannes accepted it in the main competition, where it ended up sharing the Jury Prize with Claire Denis’ Stars at Noon. Additional prizes followed at festivals like Miskolc, Mill Valley, Chicago and Seville, cementing the Ghent-born filmmaker’s status as one to watch in the realm of Belgian cinema. In fact, Close contains a spiritual connection of sorts to the works of the Dardenne brothers, as Emilie Dequenne, the acclaimed lead of Rosetta, appears as the mother of one of the two young boys whose friendship is tested throughout the film. Once again, Dhont confirms his exquisite eye for casting and for directing young actors, deriving much of the film’s emotional power from the chemistry between the amateur leads Eden Dambrine and Gustav de Waele
