27/01/2022 - Olivia Rochette and Gerard-Jan Claes’s documentary follows a young Belgian couple facing a year rife with change

Billie Meeussen and Lucas Roefmans, a young couple from Brussels, both leave for university, facing a year rife with change. Visions of the future, doubts about relationships and the expectations of adult life make up the main material for their conversations with friends and each other. This is the premise of Olivia Rochette and Gerard-Jan Claes’s documentary Kind Hearts [+see also:
film review
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interview: Olivia Rochette and Gerard-…
film profile], set to premiere in the Generation strand of this year’s Berlinale (10-20 February) and described as “a candid portrait of the formative but also uncertain facets of every ‘first’ love”.

Speaking about their film, the two directors told Cineuropa: “For Kind Hearts, we did not set out to make a documentary ‘about’ love, but instead wanted to take a look at a love affair in its specifics, depicting meeting points between the two lovers, Billie and Lucas. The experience of love is closely linked to the experience of narrative; in our minds, we recreate love as an adventure. This notion of love as a construction is also reflected in the form of the movie, characterised by its ambivalent place between staging and documentary. For us, working on a film is always a matter of attention, care and concentration, both in the choice of form, and in its relationship to people and places. Kind Hearts’ ambition is to adopt a loving gaze at how these two lovers relate to the world and each other.”

The feature is also in the running for the Berlinale Documentary Award, consisting of a €40,000 cash prize sponsored by public broadcaster Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (rbb).

Kind Hearts was produced by Belgium’s Accattone Films in co-production with Canvas. It also received support from the Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds (VAF), the Flemish Community Commission, the City of Brussels, Beursschouwburg and deAuteurs.

Check out our exclusive trailer below: