“Girl” will be representing Belgium in the 2019 foreign-language Oscar race, Deadline confirms. The drama about a transgender teen took home the Camera d’Or at Cannes for best first film. Netflix acquired North American and Latin American rights for the critically acclaimed pic, which will screen at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.
The film centers on Lara (Victor Polster,) a 15-year-old girl in Belgium who aspires to become a professional ballerina. Determined to make her dreams a reality, Lara dedicates herself to dance, but “her adolescent frustrations and impatience are heightened as she realizes her body does not bend so easily to the strict discipline, because she was [assigned male at birth],” the source summarizes.
“Girl” marks Lukas Dhont’s debut feature.
“I wanted the audience to understand what it’s like to be born in a body that’s not yours,” the writer-director has explained. “A lot of people have a body they don’t feel fully connected to. I wanted to talk about the relationship with the body, and next to that, I really wanted to show the father-child relationship. The conflict is not between them, there is no question at all from the father’s point of view whether the child should do this, this is a supportive character who shows a lot of love.”
Women-directed films submitted in the foreign-language Oscar category include “I Am Not a Witch,” Rungano Nyoni’s satire about girl accused of witchcraft, and Darya Zhuk’s “Crystal Swan,” a comedy about a DJ struggling to get a visa.
