With the movie Close, Belgian director Lukas Dhont explores the delicacy of boyhood and the shifting dynamics of male friendship with heartbreaking intimacy in his assured sophomore feature.
The winner of the Grand Prix at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, Close chronicles the bond between 13-year-olds Léo (Eden Dambrine) and Rémi (Gustav De Waele), who seem inseparable—until their connection provokes teasing by classmates, leading to tragedy.
Dhont, the director of the acclaimed trans drama Girl, collaborates with his sensitive young actors to create an indelible snapshot of adolescence so quietly profound and entrancing that it resembles a dream. Both a coming-of-age story and a deft inquiry into how boys struggle to process their feelings, Close is a movie about grief and denial, love and acceptance. Dambrine and De Waele, making their big-screen debuts, movingly play kids becoming aware of the emotional challenges that the wider world has in store for them. —Tim Grierson
The movie Close was at Mill Valley Film Festival 2022.
In Dutch, Flemish, and French with English subtitles
Date: Monday March 6th, 2023
6:30 Reception and dance performance
7:30 Close screening
9:15 Discussion with Lukas Dhont, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, and Niobe Way
Address: 351 Shotwell Street – San Francisco
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