Jean-Pierre Dardenne on Young Ahmed (Le Jeune Ahmed): “We're always very concerned with avoiding imagery …” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
With Young Ahmed (Le Jeune Ahmed), starring Idir Ben Addi as Ahmed, featuring Myriem Akheddiou, Victoria Bluck, Claire Bodson, Othmane Moumen, Olivier Bonnaud, and Cyra Lassman, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne enter a new realm of their oeuvre.
And yet their latest film, for which they won the top director prize at Cannes, is very much in line with what they do best. They illuminate seemingly impossible situations that are deeply grounded in social realities. Body language, quotidian objects, and a hesitant glance speak volumes.
Luc Dardenne on Idir Ben Addi as Ahmed: “We define the character not by his psychology, but by his accessories.” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
In the second half of my conversation at Ian Schrager's Hudson Hotel with the master filmmakers, I started out...
With Young Ahmed (Le Jeune Ahmed), starring Idir Ben Addi as Ahmed, featuring Myriem Akheddiou, Victoria Bluck, Claire Bodson, Othmane Moumen, Olivier Bonnaud, and Cyra Lassman, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne enter a new realm of their oeuvre.
And yet their latest film, for which they won the top director prize at Cannes, is very much in line with what they do best. They illuminate seemingly impossible situations that are deeply grounded in social realities. Body language, quotidian objects, and a hesitant glance speak volumes.
Luc Dardenne on Idir Ben Addi as Ahmed: “We define the character not by his psychology, but by his accessories.” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
In the second half of my conversation at Ian Schrager's Hudson Hotel with the master filmmakers, I started out...
- 2/20/2020
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Photo by Darren HughesThe Unknown Girl opens with a handheld close up of Dr. Jenny (Adèle Haenel) examining a patient. “Listen,” she says, handing her stethoscope to Julien (Olivier Bonnaud), a medical student who is interning at her clinic. Never ones to shy away from a glaring metaphor, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne announce in that brief exchange their film’s driving thematic and formal concerns. When Jenny later learns that her decision to not allow a late-night visitor into the clinic might have contributed to the young woman’s death, she puts her skills and training to new purpose: listening for clues that might help solve the murder.The Unknown Girl differs from the Dardennes’ previous fiction films only in its more obviously generic plotting. This seems to have contributed to the uncharacteristically mixed reviews that greeted the film at its 2016 Cannes premiere, where it was faulted for failing to...
- 8/29/2017
- MUBI
The Dardenne brothers have begun shooting their latest film - one of 21 features to receive a major financial boost from Eurimages.
Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne have commenced principal photography on Two Days, One Night (Deux Jours, Une Nuit) in Seraing, Belgium.
For full production details visit
Two Days, One Night (Deux Jours, Une Nuit)
Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard and Fabrizio Rongione play the leads alongside a variety of Belgian actors including Olivier Gourmet, Christelle Cornil and Catherine Salée.
The film follows 30-year old Sandra (Cotillard) and her husband (Rongione) on their hunt across the city for colleagues prepared to sacrifice their bonuses so she can keep her job.
Artificial Eye pre-bought the film for the UK from Wild Bunch, which is handling international sales. Sundance Selects has acquired it for the Us.
This €7m ($9.1m) film will be co-produced by Les Films du Fleuve (Belgium), Archipel (France) and Bim (Italy).
The technical crew will be mainly Belgian, including...
Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne have commenced principal photography on Two Days, One Night (Deux Jours, Une Nuit) in Seraing, Belgium.
For full production details visit
Two Days, One Night (Deux Jours, Une Nuit)
Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard and Fabrizio Rongione play the leads alongside a variety of Belgian actors including Olivier Gourmet, Christelle Cornil and Catherine Salée.
The film follows 30-year old Sandra (Cotillard) and her husband (Rongione) on their hunt across the city for colleagues prepared to sacrifice their bonuses so she can keep her job.
Artificial Eye pre-bought the film for the UK from Wild Bunch, which is handling international sales. Sundance Selects has acquired it for the Us.
This €7m ($9.1m) film will be co-produced by Les Films du Fleuve (Belgium), Archipel (France) and Bim (Italy).
The technical crew will be mainly Belgian, including...
- 6/26/2013
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
Le Silence de Lorna, Cannes, In Competition
While the Belgian-born Dardenne brothers are genetically incapable of making an uninteresting film, it must be admitted that "Le Silence de Lorna" -- though always eminently watchable -- is not up to the standards of their devastating 2005 Golden Palm winner, "The Child", or previous miracles like "The Son", "Rosetta" (winner of the Golden Palm in 1999), and "The Promise".
Thus, while their diminutive but devoted international fan base can be counted on to turn out for this new film as well, its success in most territories is going to be even more modest than usual. Ancillary possibilities, especially on DVD and Euro television, look more promising.
All the while maintaining their signature hand-held, quick-cut, slice-of-life aesthetic, the Dardenne brothers have ventured into new territory here. This time they focus their all-seeing camera on a young Albanian woman, Lorna, who has married a Belgian drug addict to obtain Belgian citizenship.
On the one hand, it's good to see the Dardennes trying something new, something beyond their normal cast of working-class Belgian feckless ne'er-do-wells. On the other hand, it feels like they don't really know this new territory very well -- neither in terms of the novel characters they're using, or the physical move to Liege from Seraing, the industrial town in which all their previous films have been set -- giving "Le Silence de Lorna" a highly derivative feel. Throw an Italian mobster and a Russian mafioso into the mix, and the resulting stew feels very foreign indeed.
As always in their films, the principal focus is on a moral dilemma faced by the chief protagonist. In this case, Lorna's gangster co-conspirator Fabio wants to kill off the drug addict, Claudy (played with intensity by Jeremie Renier, who debuted with the Dardennes at age 14 in "The Promise"), with an overdose of heroin. The more scrupulous, less ruthless Lorna wants get rid of Claudy by following the riskier course of faking grounds for divorce instead.
To this end, she bangs her arms against the door in one scene and smashes her forehead against the wall in another, all in order to provide evidence that the pathetic Claudy is abusing her. At the same time, and contradictorily, she is also trying to save him from his drug habit and in the process becomes emotionally attached to him.
The moral dilemmas in these films also always stem from untenable positions that the socially-disadvantaged characters find themselves in. In this regard, Lorna is only a slightly less vivid example of a sad lineup that the Dardennes have consistently offered up in an ongoing, powerful critique of the unjust world that some human beings continue to construct at the expense of others.
Cast: Arta Dobroshi, Jeremie Renier, Fabrizio Rongione, Alban Ukaj. Directors: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. Screenwriters: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. Producers: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. Director of photography: Alain Marcoen. Production designer: Igor Gabriel. Costume designer: Monique Parelle. Editor: Marie-Helene Dozo
Production Companies: Les Films du Fleuve, Archipel 35
Sales: Celluloid Dreams
No MPAA rating, 105 minutes...
While the Belgian-born Dardenne brothers are genetically incapable of making an uninteresting film, it must be admitted that "Le Silence de Lorna" -- though always eminently watchable -- is not up to the standards of their devastating 2005 Golden Palm winner, "The Child", or previous miracles like "The Son", "Rosetta" (winner of the Golden Palm in 1999), and "The Promise".
Thus, while their diminutive but devoted international fan base can be counted on to turn out for this new film as well, its success in most territories is going to be even more modest than usual. Ancillary possibilities, especially on DVD and Euro television, look more promising.
All the while maintaining their signature hand-held, quick-cut, slice-of-life aesthetic, the Dardenne brothers have ventured into new territory here. This time they focus their all-seeing camera on a young Albanian woman, Lorna, who has married a Belgian drug addict to obtain Belgian citizenship.
On the one hand, it's good to see the Dardennes trying something new, something beyond their normal cast of working-class Belgian feckless ne'er-do-wells. On the other hand, it feels like they don't really know this new territory very well -- neither in terms of the novel characters they're using, or the physical move to Liege from Seraing, the industrial town in which all their previous films have been set -- giving "Le Silence de Lorna" a highly derivative feel. Throw an Italian mobster and a Russian mafioso into the mix, and the resulting stew feels very foreign indeed.
As always in their films, the principal focus is on a moral dilemma faced by the chief protagonist. In this case, Lorna's gangster co-conspirator Fabio wants to kill off the drug addict, Claudy (played with intensity by Jeremie Renier, who debuted with the Dardennes at age 14 in "The Promise"), with an overdose of heroin. The more scrupulous, less ruthless Lorna wants get rid of Claudy by following the riskier course of faking grounds for divorce instead.
To this end, she bangs her arms against the door in one scene and smashes her forehead against the wall in another, all in order to provide evidence that the pathetic Claudy is abusing her. At the same time, and contradictorily, she is also trying to save him from his drug habit and in the process becomes emotionally attached to him.
The moral dilemmas in these films also always stem from untenable positions that the socially-disadvantaged characters find themselves in. In this regard, Lorna is only a slightly less vivid example of a sad lineup that the Dardennes have consistently offered up in an ongoing, powerful critique of the unjust world that some human beings continue to construct at the expense of others.
Cast: Arta Dobroshi, Jeremie Renier, Fabrizio Rongione, Alban Ukaj. Directors: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. Screenwriters: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. Producers: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. Director of photography: Alain Marcoen. Production designer: Igor Gabriel. Costume designer: Monique Parelle. Editor: Marie-Helene Dozo
Production Companies: Les Films du Fleuve, Archipel 35
Sales: Celluloid Dreams
No MPAA rating, 105 minutes...
- 5/19/2008
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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