‘Julian’ Opens 52nd Edition of Film Fest Gent

Opening with a Debut

With her debut feature Julian, Kusters makes history as the youngest director ever to open Film Fest Gent. The film, based on the book of the same name by Fleur Pierets, tells the moving story of Pierets’ relationship with her great love, Julian P. Boom. When Julian proposes, the couple decides to marry in every country where marriage between two women is legally recognized. Their “world tour of love” is abruptly cut short after four ceremonies when Julian falls ill and passes away. What begins as a dream project evolves into an intimate story of love, loss, and remembrance.

For the 26-year-old Kusters, it also feels like a homecoming: three years ago, her short film Finns Hiel won the award for Best Belgian Student Short at Film Fest Gent. Now she opens the 52nd edition with her debut feature, again as the youngest director in the festival’s history. She co-wrote the screenplay with Angelo Tijssens, who previously found success with Girl and Close. The film was produced by The Reunion, the Dhont brothers’ production company.

In the presence of director Cato Kusters, Fleur Pierets, and lead actors Nina Meurisse and Laurence Roothooft, the 52nd edition of Film Fest Gent kicked off in style. By opening with Julian, the festival deliberately shines a light on young Belgian talent whose first feature is already making waves internationally. After its world premiere in Toronto, the film is now being shown in Belgium for the first time.

The cast includes, in addition to Meurisse and Roothooft, Rosalia Cuevas, Peter Seynaeve, Jennifer Heylen, and Claire Bodson. The score was composed by Evgueni and Sacha Galperine, known for Loveless, Baby Reindeer, and Gagarine.

During the annual WSA Film Music Days (14 - 16 Oct.), internationally renowned composers such as Jerskin Fendrix, Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch, Martin Phipps, A.R. Rahman and Debbie Wiseman will also travel to Ghent. Established names like Volker Bertelmann, Nainita Desai, and Theodore Shapiro will share their expertise in workshops, while Michael Abels, Amritha Vaz, and Sandro Morales-Santoro will accept the WSA Industry Award on behalf of the Composers Diversity Collective.

Official Competition

As every year, an international jury will award the Grand Prix for Best Film and the Georges Delerue Award for Best Soundtrack or Sound Design. The twelve selected films reflect the versatility of contemporary cinema: from intimate dramas to bold debuts, from experimental reflections to compelling stories connecting history and current affairs.

In Barrio Triste by Colombian-American photographer and music video director Stillz, a camera falls into the hands of four teenagers, resulting in a raw self-portrait of life on the margins of Medellín in the late 1980s, amidst poverty and violence. In a completely different tone, Canadian-Hungarian filmmaker Sophy Romvari explores the fragile boundary between memory and grief in her intimate film diary Blue Heron.

The Belgian-Vietnamese Hair, Paper, Water… by Nicolas Graux and Trương Minh Quý follows Cao Thị Hậu as she teaches her grandchildren the endangered Rục language. Every word and memory reflects a search for identity and impermanence. In Memory of Princess Mumbi by Swiss-Kenyan filmmaker Damien Hauser, director Kuve travels to Umata, a village in a futuristic Africa, where he meets Mumbi, an actress who challenges him to make his documentary without AI. Hauser blends mockumentary, sci-fi romance, and AI landscapes into a poetic ode to human creativity.

Lucrecia Martel, known for La Ciénaga and Zama, enters the competition with her first documentary Nuestra Tierra, which links the murder of indigenous leader Javier Chocobar to centuries of land dispossession in Argentina. In Sound of Falling (In die Sonne schauen), German filmmaker Mascha Schilinski follows the branching wounds of shared trauma across four young women. On a farm complex, layers of time overlap, guided by an inheritance of unresolved grief.

Kelly Reichardt again engages in a subtle dialogue with genre cinema. In The Mastermind - a minimalist, melancholic heist film - James B. Mooney (Josh O’Connor) plans an amateur art theft as his family life falls apart. Collapsing families are also at the heart of Hlynur Pálmason’s The Love that Remains (Ástin Sem Eftir Er), a series of short, often humorous vignettes dissecting the aftershocks of divorce.

The poetic, analog coming-of-age film Strange River (Estrany Riu) by debuting Catalan filmmaker Jaume Claret Muxart dreamily follows the budding desires and affections of youth along the banks of the Danube. Equally sensory but very different in scope is Bi Gan’s Resurrection, where a guilt-ridden “monster figure” and a woman with an unerring gift of discernment wander through chapters of film history.

The lineup closes with two films exploring the devastating consequences of war. In Timestamp (Strichka Chasu) by Kateryna Gornostai, school life in Ukraine continues despite Russian attacks. Without interviews or voice-over, the film - world-premiered at the Berlinale - observes a school year filled with resilience among pupils and teachers. Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab revisits the tragic final hours of six-year-old Hind Rajab in Gaza (29 January 2024) as an intense docudrama, built around real emergency calls from the Palestinian Red Crescent. At Venice, the film earned an exceptionally long standing ovation and won the Grand Jury Prize.

25th World Soundtrack Awards

No Film Fest Gent without music. During the WSA Film Music Days (14 - 16 Oct.), the city once again celebrates film and television music. On Wednesday 15 October, the prestigious World Soundtrack Awards will be presented at the festive WSA Ceremony & Concert. This jubilee edition will be marked by a special concert: Minimalism in Motion: Glass, Nyman and Beyond, a musical tribute to the power and influence of minimalist film scores.