Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne

The Dardenne brothers, masters of realism, won the Grand Prix at Cannes with their most moving film, about a lonely boy who has to learn to trust other people and himself. They had never used music in their films before, but this time they reach for Beethoven. — Twelve-year-old Cyril lives in a children’s home in Belgium, and his father has vanished without a trace, selling the boy’s bike on his way out. Cyril refuses to accept it and runs away, until Samantha, a hairdresser he barely knows, agrees to have him to stay at weekends. She also buys his bike back. — Grand Prize of the Jury | Cannes Film Festival | 2011

Rosetta will take any job she can get, and the Dardenne brothers keep the camera so close to her that her panic becomes yours. It won them the first of their two Palmes d’Or, and Belgium went on to name a youth employment law after her. — Rosetta lives in a caravan on the edge of a Belgian town with her alcoholic mother, and all she wants is work, any work, on any terms. The film is only minutes old when she loses the job she has. When Riquet from the waffle stand offers her his friendship, what she’d really like is his job. — Golden Palm | Cannes Film Festival | 1999 Best Actress Awards (Emilie Dequenne) | Cannes Film Festival | 1999

Olivier Gourmet won a prize at Cannes for the Dardenne brothers’ harrowing mystery, in which a carpenter refuses to take a boy on as his apprentice and then starts following him. Five years earlier, Francis changed his life forever. — Olivier teaches carpentry at a centre for troubled teenagers. When Francis, who has only just arrived, asks to be taken on in his workshop, Olivier turns him down. Then he digs out the boy’s file, finds out where he sleeps and begins to follow him. — Special Prize of the Jury (Special Mention) | Cannes Film Festival | 2002 Best Actor Award (Olivier Gourmet) | Cannes FIlm Festival | 2002

The Dardenne brothers, leading figures of social cinema, won Best Director at Cannes for this story of a thirteen-year-old in the grip of religious fanaticism. There’s no forgiveness here, no excuse and no condemnation, only a boy nobody is ready to give up on. — Thirteen-year-old Ahmed lives in Belgium and, under the influence of the local imam, starts reading the Koran in a fanatical way. The imam has convinced him that his teacher, Inès, is an apostate, and Ahmed has stopped questioning anything at all. He tries to kill her, fails, and ends up in a juvenile detention centre. — Best Director | Cannes Film Festival | 2019 Nominated for Best Foreign Film | César Awards | 2020