Viewer Advice: Contains suicide themes.

When her coach is accused of misconduct, a tennis prodigy decides – for her own complex reasons – not to return serve.

Everyone at an exclusive Belgian tennis academy is shocked when its demanding head coach, Jeremy, is suspended pending a misconduct investigation into the suicide of a former star pupil. Then, like the gaze of a stadium crowd, all eyes turn to Jeremy’s current favourite, Julie. Brimming with athletic promise, she’s been working closely with Jeremy, unsupervised and away from other players, and he’s still texting her every day. But rather than talk to investigators, this tough and focused teenager chooses to process her emotional upheaval on her own. Aware that this moment could make or break her whole career, she’s not about to let anyone else seize the advantage.

Belgian director Leonardo Van Dijl’s debut feature, co-produced by the Dardenne brothers, premiered to acclaim at Cannes Critics’ Week, where it won the SACD Award. With its mood of roiling tension beneath watchful stillness, this character portrait rallies cinematic form to echo the ruthless self-composure deployed by its protagonist as a survival strategy. Real-life tennis player Tessa Van den Broeck delivers an impressively poised performance in her first acting role, making Julie’s vulnerable interiority powerfully eloquent despite her outward stoicism.

“A tense, absorbing movie of silences and absences … This is a gripping study in dysfunction and repression.” – The Guardian

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Director Leonardo Van Dijl is a guest of the festival and will be in attendance at all sessions of the film.