Girl

Drama about a 15-year-old who desperately wants to achieve two things: to become a woman and a ballerina.

Lara is 15 and has a dream: she wants to become a ballet dancer. When she is conditionally accepted at a prestigious academy, she moves to Brussels with her father and little brother. Meanwhile, Lara is trying to win a second battle: She wants to undergo a sex change operation. She is already a girl on the outside, but her body is still that of a boy. Her father supports her in her endeavour, accompanies his daughter every step of the way and is there for her, as are psychologists and doctors. But the pressure on the young ballerina to perform is enormous, and Lara is also thrown into the hot and cold waters of puberty by her classmates. The energy-sapping training eventually forces Lara into self-mortification, which in turn jeopardises her operation. Her two big dreams seem to contradict each other more and more. When the doctors finally forbid her to do ballet, Lara makes a momentous decision to become a woman for good.
GIRL won over the jury, critics and audience alike at the Cannes Film Festival and consequently picked up four trophies.

DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT
When I was a child, my father wanted me to become a boy scout. Every fortnight he would drop my brother and me off there and we would play in the mud with the other kids or go camping. We both hated it. We preferred acting, singing and dancing because we could express ourselves better. You can imagine how confusing it was for us when we learnt shortly afterwards that this was considered feminine, something ‘for girls’. I was a boy, so how could I enjoy something like this? At some point I let it go because I didn't want to be laughed at for it. Many years later, when I had just started my film studies, I read an article in a newspaper about a young girl. She had been born in a boy's body but was convinced that she was a girl, even though it didn't seem to be the case from a biological point of view. My admiration for her was enormous. I really wanted to portray such a character, a courageous young person who challenges a society in which the biological, social and cultural definitions of gender are inevitably linked. That was the starting point for GIRL. The need to say something about how we perceive gender, femininity and masculinity. First and foremost, however, it is about the inner struggle of the young protagonist, who puts her own body on the line in order to become the person she wants to be.