Official screening

  • thursday, 7 september 2023
Sala Grande
16:30
by Fien Troch
with Cathalina Geraerts, Felix Heremans, Greet Verstraete, Serdi Faki Alici, Els Deceukelier

(2023, Belgium, The Netherlands, Louxemburg, France, 102')

After a fire broke out in a local school and many students were left killed or injured, a community comes together and try to make sense of the tragedy. That morning, fifteen-year-old Holly called the school to excuse herself for the day. A teacher, bewildred by Holly’s strange premonition, invites her to join their support group. Holly seems to be of help, though soon people want to take advantage of her cathartic energy and start pestering her with demands. Playing with the code of horror, Fien Troch blends faith, personal relationships, fate, and the complexity of life into a magic coming-of-age film on troubled adolescence.

Fien Troch

Awarded the Jury Prize in the Orizzonti Section in 2016 for her Home, an original film on teenage-adult troubled relationships, Fien Troch is now in the main competition with her fourth feature film. Born in Belgium in 1987, Troch is a director, screenwriter, and producer who graduated at Brussel’s St Lukas Film School in 2000. Her debut came in 2005 with Someone Else’s Happiness. Unspoken of 2008 competed at the Turin Film Festival. Her Kid of 2012 received two Magritte Awards nominations.

INTERNATIONAL CRITICS

THE HOLLYWOOD
REPORTER
3.5/5
THE FILM
VERDICT
2.5/5
Mathieu Macheret
Le Monde
3/5
BEN CROLL
THE WRAP
4/5
TOMMASO KOCH
EL PAIS
2/5
KEVIN MAHER
THE TIMES
2/5
JONATHAN ROMNEY
THE OBSERVER
4/5
BARBARA HOLLENDER
rzeczpospolita
3.5/5
Daniel Kothenschulte
FRANKFURTER RUNDSCHAU
4/5

2.45

Belgian director Fien Troch in Competition with mystical coming-of-age

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