Jean

"School s a kind of story, really", Jean observes in the Belgian documentary portrait named after him. Who, after all, couldn't understand the teenager from Antwerp longing for a greater say over that story? Jean has, in fact, already been through considerably more schools and educational pathways than most of his peers. "I used to be very stupid. Not in my brain. But just my choices." Throughout the film, the young man expresses himself with surprising insight. Jean is determined to move once again, this time to a school that will allow him to obtain a secondary school diploma. That dream keeps him awake at night. Meanwhile, at school, he paints Jean-Claude Van Damme in Bloodsport. Like his partial namesake, Jean is a fighter.

Director Jolke Van Aerde graduated from KASK School of Arts in 2021 with the short film Komm, süßer Tod, which that year featured in the competition for Belgian student shorts at Film Fest Gent. The filmmaker then went on to complete a master's degree in education. It was during this period that she began work on this earnest debut feature. As cinematographer (see also the coming-of-age portrait Zlata, FFG2023), she herself filmed Jean over the course of several years. From behind the camera, she asks him, among other things, about the meaning of faith in his life. In his answers, Jean sounds just as candid as he does during conversations at school with teachers and mentors, or at home at the table with family.

Together with Dieter Diependaele (Bas Devos's regular editor), Jolke Van Aerde opts for a mosaic-like structure with a non-chronological narrative and no explicit markers of time. In doing so, the film mirrors the fragile and turbulent nature of an identity still very much in the making. This intuitive approach also matches Jean's remarkable capacity for introspection. On the soundtrack, silences find an ally in the music of Mika Baudoux and Laura Conant, two versatile Brussels-based artists. The Irish-born composer Sam Comerford, meanwhile, interprets Bach to sound a hopeful note. A teacher gives Jean the message to "stay as close to reality as possible." Jean the film succeeds in this with flying colours.