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Tessa Van den Broeck as Julie. Director Leonardo van Dijl: 'We often see stories, especially about women, where they are always being punished. I did not want this to happen with this story' Photo: Nicolas Karakastanis Julie Keeps Quiet keeps its focus on a young tennis star after her coach is suspended following the suicide of a fellow player. Tessa Van den Broeck - who is herself an up-and-coming player - imbues Julie with a sense of stoicism as she maintains her silence despite the adults around her pushing her to speak out. Director Leonardo van Dijl - who co-wrote the script with Ruth Becquart, says it was important to keep the agency with his central character, even though his choice meant it was tough to get the film made.

“When I started the movie five years ago, the general consensus was, ‘It’s not a movie. She keeps quiet’,” he says.

Film Movement has bought North American rights to Belgium Oscar entry “Julie Keeps Quiet” which is executive produced by tennis champion Naomi Osaka, and world premiered at Cannes’ Critics Week.

A feature debut directed by Leonardo Van Dijl, “Julie Keeps Quiet” went on to play Karlovy Vary and Toronto, and will next screen at the BFI London Film Festival following its Cannes bow. The movie will have its U.S. premiere at the Hamptons Film Festival.

The drama stars newcomer Tessa Van den Broeck as Julie, a young and promising tennis player who faces a dilemma when her prominent coach is suspended after the suicide of a former prodigy. Suspicions of inappropriate conduct arise and pressure starts mounting for Julie to speak up. As she refrains from sharing her experiences, her silence leaves the investigation and the coach’s future in limbo.

“Julie Keeps Quiet” is slated for a theatrical...

The European Film Academy has revealed the first tranche of film titles that members can consider for nominations for the European Film Awards, which take place on Dec. 7 in Lucerne, Switzerland.

The academy’s selection of 29 titles covers films that had their first official screening between June 1, 2023, and May 31, 2024. Further titles will be announced in September, which will include films that had their premieres in the summer and early autumn festivals, such as Locarno and Venice.

Among the selection are Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Pérez,” Cannes’ best actress and jury prize winner, Miguel Gomes’ “Grand Tour,” Cannes’ best director winner, Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Kinds Of Kindness,” best actor winner at Cannes, Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” jury special prize winner at Cannes, Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance,” best screenplay winner at Cannes, “Armand” by Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel, the Golden Camera winner at Cannes, Matthias Glasner’s “Dying,...

Cannes Competition titles The Substance, The Seed Of The Sacred Fig, and Emilia Perez are among the first set of titles recommended for nominations at this year’s European Film Awards.

Overall, 29 titles have been selected for the first stage of nominations by the European Film Academy Board. The selection includes films from 26 countries. In the coming weeks, the 5,000 members of the European Film Academy will start to vote on the selected films. The winners will be announced at the European Film Awards ceremony in Lucerne, Switzerland, on December 7.

To be eligible for a European Film Awards, films must be European feature films which, among other criteria, had their first official screening between June 1, 2023 and May 31, 2024 and have a European director. The rule book states that should a film director not be European, exceptions can be made if the filmmaker is “provided they have a European refugee or similar status...

For teenage tennis prodigy Julie, discipline isn’t merely a virtue but a survival strategy. Repressing adolescent urges and emotional swings has long been part of her routine at the high-level youth tennis academy where she’s currently the star student: Years of concentrating all her time and attention on her game — all work and all play, as it were — look likely to reward her with the pro career she dreams of. Yet as whispers build of inappropriate behavior by her coach, Julie’s deliberate tunnel vision seems less a rigorous regimen than a fragile defense against interior collapse. A tense, taut, artfully hushed debut feature by Belgian writer-director Leonardo van Dijl, “Julie Keeps Quiet” also knows the value of control — though its own calm is fraught with anxiety and anger.

A standout of this year’s Critics’ Week programme at Cannes — where it won the Sacd Award and scored sales including a U.

Die 1962 von der französischen Kritikervereinigung Syndicat français de la critique de cinéma ins Leben gerufene, parallel zum Festival de Cannes stattfindende Reihe hat jetzt ihre Preisträger gekürt.

Gewinner des Großen Preises der Semaine de la Critique: „Simon de la montana“ (Credit: Semaine de la Critique)

Frederico Luis‘ argentinisch-chilenisch-uruguayanische Koproduktion „Simon de la montana“ ist mit dem Großen Preis der Semaine de la Critique ausgezeichnet worden.

Die Jury der 1962 von der französischen Kritikervereinigung Syndicat français de la critique de cinéma ins Leben gerufene, parallel zum Festival de Cannes stattfindende Reihe unter dem Vorsitz der französischen Filmproduzentin Sylvie Pialat vergab darüber hinaus den Prix French Touch du Jury an Constance Tsangs „Blue Sun Palace“, den Prix Fondation Louis Roederer de la Révélation an Ricardo Teodoro für seine Rolle in Marcelo Caetanos „Baby“ und den Prix Découverte Leitz Cine du court métrage an Guil Selas „Montsouris“.

Von Partnern der Semaine de la Critique...

Belgian director Leonardo Van Dijl’s assured debut feature, Julie Keeps Quiet, builds a riveting psychological drama around the choice of a star player from an elite youth tennis academy not to speak up in the wake of tragedy. In her first acting role, young tennis ace Tessa Van den Broeck internalizes the title character’s brooding unease with slow-burn intensity. The movie’s silence is so loaded with the anxiety, obstinance, inchoate anger and desire for anonymity of the traumatized teenage sportswoman that the constant thwack of her racquet hitting the ball cuts through the tension like violent shocks.

Unfolding predominantly in static frames that keep the story laser-focused, with pinpoint use of American contemporary classical composer Caroline Shaw’s needling vocal score, this is an austerely effective work. It has a kinship with Laura Wandel’s Playground from 2021 and last year’s The Teachers’ Lounge by İlker Çatak,...

Federico Luis’ Simon Of The Mountain won the Cannes Critics’ Week Grand Prize on Wednesday night (May 22).

The Argentinian first feature is a coming-of-age story about a boy with a disability wrestling through life. Luxbox is handling international sales for the film produced by Argentina’s 20/20 in coproduction with Chile’s Planta, Uruguay’s Mother Superior and Los Angeles and Mexico City-based Twelve Thirty Media.

The jury prize went to US director Constance Tsang’s first feature Blue Sun Palace about Chinese immigrants living in Queens. Charades is handling international sales and WME has North American rights to the film...

And the winner is: “Simon of the Mountain.”

The film, directed by Federico Luis – and marking his feature debut – was awarded Cannes’ Critics Week Grand Prix.

Sold by Luxbox, the Argentina-Chile-Uruguay production stars Lorenzo “Toto” Ferro, the lead in breakout “El Angel,” as Simon, 21, a lonely only son who falls in with a group of discapacitated kids, feigning a discapacity. Thanks to their friendship he flowers, discovering love, sex and a sense of belonging.

“I am thinking not only about what it means to us, but also about what it means to the people in Argentina who, over the course of the next four years, will struggle, trying to make local films,” said Luis, accepting the award.

“At home, there are people who still think we make films no one wants to see. I hope this will change it and that Argentinian people – and then the whole world – will watch Argentinian cinema.

Watching this calmly controlled and sharply focused debut feature from Leonardo ban Dijl put me in mind of Vania Turner’s recent Greek/British documentary Tack, which charts the story of sailing champion Sofia Bekatorou. She spoke out years after she had been abused by a coach, prompting a second, younger woman to come forward with her own separate experience and sparking the Greek arm of the #MeToo movement.

Questions of why a survivor would stay silent were among those raised as the court case for the younger woman went forward. Van Dijl’s film - co-written with Ruth Becquart - goes a long way to answering some of those, while asking plenty of its own. Belgian Julie has the sort of focus many young athletes have, laying her energies down on the court on a daily basis - something Van Dijl emphasises...

Jour2Fete has acquired French distribution rights to Cannes Critics’ Week title Julie Keeps Quiet.

The debut feature of Belgian director Leonardo Van Dijl, Julie Keeps Quiet is set in an elite tennis academy. When an investigation into her tennis coach ignites and he is suspended, all of the club’s players are encouraged to speak up but star player Julie chooses to keep quiet - leaving the investigation and the coach’s future in doubt. Van Dijl’s short film Stephanie played in Cannes, San Sebastian and TIFF in 2020 and was set in the world of gymnastics.

International sales for...

Warsaw-based sales outlet New Europe Film Sales has signed an international sales deal for the upcoming Belgian debut “Julie Keeps Quiet” by Leonardo Van Dijl, whose short film “Stephanie,” also repped by New Europe, played in Cannes competition in 2020.

Both films are set in the world of competitive youth sports: the short explored the world of gymnastics, while the feature film takes on tennis. The feature is to be shot in the second half of this year with delivery planned for mid-2024.

In “Julie Keeps Quiet,” when the practices of a prominent tennis coach are investigated, attention quickly shifts to Julie, a young and promising player who is always around him. As pressure mounts for her to share her experiences, Julie chooses to keep quiet and focus on her game, leaving the investigation and the coach’s future in doubt.

Van Dijl said: “In a society where speaking up is highly valued,...

The English-language Dutch film is now shooting in Italy and the Netherlands.

UK actor Aneurin Barnard, whose credits include TV series Peaky Blinders and Dunkirk, and Israel’s Dar Zuzovsky have joined the cast of Dutch director Michiel Van Erp’s costume drama A Beautiful Imperfection, about Casanova and the woman with whom he falls in love.

Barnard is set to play Casanova’s brother Barrnard while Zuzovsky has been cast as Maria, the woman with whom Giacomo Casanova (the more famous of the Casanova brothers) is played by Jonah Hauer-King.

The film is based on the novel In Lucia...

The English-language Dutch film is now shooting in Italy and the Netherlands.

UK actor Aneurin Barnard, whose credits include TV series Peaky Blinders and Joe Wright’s Dunkirk, and Israel’s Dar Zuzovsky have signed to star in Dutch director Michiel Van Erp’s costume drama A Beautiful Imperfection, about Casanova and the woman with whom he falls in love.

The film is based on the novel In Lucia’s Eyes by Arthur Japin and tells the story of the love affair between Casanova and a courtesan who becomes disfigured by smallpox and flees Italy for Amsterdam.

The €5.5 million English-language...

Admirably uncompromising depiction of what may or may not be its hero’s subconscious is intensely realised but not all that much fun to watch

By turns fetid and febrile, pyretic and putrid, and all things hot and sticky, this unique avant garde work is the result of a collaboration between writer-director Stefan Lernous and his colleagues at Abattoir Fermé, a theatre company based in the Belgian Flemish-speaking city of Mechelen. It has a plot, of sorts: there’s a guy named Dave who looks after his family’s supposedly empty hotel, an elaborate set full of rooms encrusted with mould, grot and dead stuff, all of it in the process of mulching down into one sludgy, semi-organic mass. Perhaps the title is a clue that this is all taking place in some para-aquatic terrain, which would explain the abundance of tridents and fishtanks and other watery kit.

Anyway, Dave...

Stars: Ruth Becquart, Steve Geerts, Anneke Sluiters, Tine Van den Wyngaert, Dominique Van Malder, Tom Vermeir | Written and Directed by Stef Lernous

Sometimes, just sometimes, you come across a film that defies categorisation; some that defy logic. Then there’s Hotel Poseidon. Which defies categorisation, logic, explanation… you name it. This film is Literally someones twisted fever dream – a series of vignettes told in one locale from the point of view of one person but featuring a bizarre, absurdist and downright disturbing cast of characters And situations – writ large on the screen. And whomever this dream belongs to has some serious issues!

The films “plot” – if you can say this film has a plot – tells the story of Dave, the reluctant manager of a hotel where fungus covers the walls and comments such as “faded glory” and “has seen better times” completely fall short to describe this establishment. He wanders...