A film by Koen Mortier
Belgium/Netherlands 2023, 106 min
Followed by a film talk with the leading actor Thibaud Dooms.
The authorities finally take action and free 17-year-old Liam from his home, which is characterised by violence, drug excesses and abuse. Under the care of a state institution for traumatised and difficult-to-educate young people, the boy is to be helped to leave the horrors of the past behind him. Anger, hatred and despair run deep, fear inhibits his willingness to open up, and every step forwards is followed by two steps backwards. Although the young people in the centre finally come into contact with empathy and understanding, the institutional problems of powerlessness and excessive demands quickly become apparent. It is not only these limits of what is possible, but above all the escalating arguments between Liam and another young person that raise the question of whether and how the spiral of violence can be overcome.
Honoured at the Tallinn Black Nights, the Ostend Film Festival and the Fantasy Filmfest.
Director & screenplay: Koen Mortier – Cinematography: Nicolas Karakatsanis – Editing: Manu van Hove – Music: Amenra – With Thibaud Dooms, Colin Van Eeckhout, Sarah Vandeursen, Dirk Roofthooft, Natali Broods and others. – German distribution: Camera Obscura Filmdistribution, cameraobscurafilms.de
Koen Mortier
Koen Mortier, born in 1965, is a Belgian director and producer. After completing his film studies at the Royal Institute for Theater, Cinema, and Sound in Brussels, he founded CZAR Film in 1999 together with director Joe Vanhoutteghem. For years, CZAR has been one of the most influential and successful production companies in Belgium and beyond
the country’s borders. As a commercial filmmaker, Mortier has won numerous awards, including at the Cannes Film Festival.
He made his feature film debut with Ex Drummer (2007), which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and won several international awards. His second film, 22 May (2010), won awards at film festivals in Leeds, Mexico, and Baghdad. His third feature film, Un ange (2018), was also shown at numerous film festivals. After directing the eleven-part Netflix documentary series Voices of Liberation (2022), Mortier’s fourth feature film, Skunk (2023), was released. In his works, Mortier focuses on marginal figures and deals with themes such as alienation, violence, and social decay.
His films are challenging and confrontational, characterized by their raw energy and dark humor. His style is visceral, deliberately unpolished, striving for an impression of physical immediacy, emphasizing the emotional experiences of his characters over conventional plot structures. The provocation of his films is not an end in itself, but is based on the conviction that in this way, something truly authentic about the human condition can be revealed.
