Lukas Dhont Interview On Belgium Oscar Entry — Contenders Worldwide – Deadline

Winner of the Grand Prix at this yr’s Cannes Movie Competition, Lukas Dhont’s follow-up to the transgender drama Lady is one other shifting examine of a tough adolescence. Talking at Deadline’s Contenders Movie: Worldwide award-season occasion, he described the movie because the story of two greatest associates Léo and Rémi.

“They’re 13 years outdated,” he stated, “and so they have been greatest associates since ceaselessly. It’s a fantastic, tender and intimate friendship, and we observe them as they go to highschool. As their closeness begins to turn out to be questioned by their schoolmates, we see how that can influence their friendship.”

Dhont revealed that the inspiration truly got here from a non-fiction e book referred to as Deep Secrets and techniques by American psychologist Niobe Approach. “She adopted 150 boys between the age of 13 and 18,” stated Dhont, “and on the age of 13 she requested them to speak about their male friendships. Once you learn these testimonies, they’re crammed with vulnerability. These boys dare to make use of the phrase ‘love’ very brazenly — their vocabulary may be very emotional. After which on the age of 16, 17, 18, she re-asked the identical boys the identical questions. And also you discover how these boys hastily don’t dare to talk in that very same approach and the way they don’t dare to make use of the phrase ‘love’ when talking about one another. They simply don’t dare to make use of that emotional vocabulary anymore.”

Though these testimonies got here solely from Individuals, Dhont was fast to see the connection along with his personal experiences, rising up, and the way this might be the idea for a wider-reaching story.

“I all the time attempt to begin from one thing that’s deeply essential to me,” he stated, “after which, alongside the way in which, I attempt to discover the common emotions in there. For me, the fantastic thing about poetry or artwork is when it’s framed in a common approach. So this movie got here from a deeply private place — for a very long time I assumed that my fragility was my weak spot. My tenderness was my weak spot. As a result of on this world, from a really younger age, we [teach] younger boys to worry tenderness and to worry vulnerability, and I feel understanding the universality of that was essential for me in making this movie.”

Verify again Monday for the panel video.