Julie Keeps Quiet
Directed by
Leonardo van Dijl
As the star player at an elite youth tennis academy, Julie’s life revolves around the game she loves. She trains hard, pausing only for class or physical therapy before returning to the gym fixated on making it into the Belgian Tennis Federation. When her coach Jérémy is suddenly suspended following the suicide of one of his female protégées, all the players at the academy are encouraged to speak up about their experiences with him. Julie, however, decides to keep quiet. Despite strong suspicions from those around her that Julie’s relationship with Jérémy was inappropriate at best, her persistent silence begins to speak volumes. Confused and full of anxiety, the pressure she once channeled solely towards training shifts inward, affecting her confidence, her focus, and her game. Executive produced by tennis champion Naomi Osaka, JULIE KEEPS QUIET is a "tense, taut, artfully hushed debut feature" (Variety) by Belgian writer-director Leonardo van Dijl. Led by newcomer Tessa Van den Broeck whose performance embodies the different ways trauma is internalized, JULIE KEEPS QUIET respectfully and empathetically examines why some victims choose to remain silent.
Cast
- Tessa Van den Broeck
- Ruth Becquart
- Koen De Bouw
- Claire Bodson
- Laurent Caron
- "NYT Critic's Pick! [T]his Belgian film’s virtue lies in its fidelity to her path and her pace...maintains that Julie’s story is available only when she’s ready to tell it."
- "This impressive debut feature — cold as a crypt and yet enormously sensitive all at once — is never framed like a mystery, or at least not like the mystery that you might expect from its premise...The question at the heart of this film [...] is why Julie chooses to remain silent, and the overlapping array of possible answers provided by Van Dijl and Ruth Becquart’s script allows this sober coming-of-age story to mature into an absorbingly implosive portrait of a girl learning to listen to herself."
- "It may be a challenge to depict the struggles of a character so committed to not talking about their problems, but van Dijl and Van den Broeck take a remarkably subtle approach to tell Julie’s story."
- "Standout of Critics Week 2024. A confident debut... tautly controlled in its treatment of a current hot-button theme."
- "A technically precise film with a call to action."
- "[A] tense, absorbing movie of silences and absences... a gripping study in dysfunction and repression."
- "Riveting Debut From Belgium - The movie’s silence is so loaded with the anxiety, obstinance, inchoate anger and desire for anonymity of the traumatized teenage sportswoman that the constant thwack of her racquet hitting the ball cuts through the tension like violent shocks. Unfolding predominantly in static frames that keep the story laser-focused, with pinpoint use of American contemporary classical composer Caroline Shaw’s needling vocal score, this is an austerely effective work."
- "Julie Keeps Quiet explores the questions of abuse, domination and control with accuracy and genuine cinematographic intelligence... but it’s also significant in and of itself for its sharp screenplay, the quality of its artistic direction and, last but not least, the impressive performance of Tessa Van den Broeck, a young tennis player in her first on-screen role."
- "[A] taut, haunting character study whose patient rhythms effectively breeds inescapable tension."
- "A standout of this year’s Critics’ Week programme at Cannes... “Julie Keeps Quiet” should travel far on the strength of its coolly riveting execution and subject matter that remains broadly resonant amid an ongoing #MeToo reckoning. Van den Broeck’s remarkable performance never wavers in either its physical poise or its clarity of expression...."
- "Julie Keeps Quiet expertly addresses the minefield of dangers inherent in unbalanced power relationships. Gripping and undeniable, Julie Keeps Quiet stares down the line and serves a gut-punching ace."
- "Julie Keeps Quiet shines an essential light on youth sports and the abuse that goes on in them led by an open, generous performance by Van den Broeck."
- "A winning debut."
- "[T]urns a keen eye towards the culture of anxiety, abuse, and silence that continues to pervade women’s sports at all levels of the game post-#MeToo...a smart and sensitive debut feature that succeeds in telling a story about abuse of power while empowering, rather than exploiting, its protagonist."
- "It’s about not wanting to rock any boats, not wanting to divert attention away from her tennis and her drive for success, and maybe even not wanting to see Jeremy be punished more than he already has...Yet its satisfaction comes from its careful release of information, it’s ambience of encroaching dread and the subtle psychological twists that push Julie ever closer to that euphoric breaking point."
- "Director Leonardo Van Dijl displays a sensitive touch and a deep understanding of a teenager’s emotions and anxieties in his feature debut...As Julie, Tessa Van den Broeck delivers a stellar yet nuanced performance."
- "It’s a movie in the tradition of Belgian filmmaking legends the Dardenne brothers, stripped back and focused on the emotional truth at the core of the story: that there are many ways to keep a silence, and that the burden of keeping it can be very heavy indeed."
- "The film is about a girl coping with what happens when boundaries have been so irreparably breached that you don’t even know what is appropriate anymore. Tennis, with its carefully outlined court and rules about what is in and out of bounds, is an excellent metaphor for this. Van Dijl is conscious of when sounds, like an unseen phone alert, and people breach the frame or push across it into another person’s space."
- "Buoyed by a keen observational eye into the ins-and-outs, ebbs and flows, and daily rhythms of tennis academy life, a trait typical of Julie Keeps Quiet’s award-wining producers and filmmaking duo, the Dardennes Brothers (L'Enfant, Rosetta, La Promesse), as well as a grounded, naturalistic performance from Tessa Van den Broeck, a tennis player making her feature-length debut here, and a talented cast equal to the demands of a taut, tense script that hangs on the simple, if potentially life-changing question suggested by the title, Julie Keeps Quiet provides worthwhile, even invaluable insight into a corner of the world rarely depicted on screen."
Awards & Recognition
Winner
SACD Award - Critics' Week
Cannes Film Festival
SACD Award - Critics' Week
Cannes Film Festival
Winner
Prix Fondation GAN - Critics' Week
Cannes Film Festival
Prix Fondation GAN - Critics' Week
Cannes Film Festival
Nominated
Critics' Week Grand Prize
Cannes Film Festival
Critics' Week Grand Prize
Cannes Film Festival
Nominated
Bright Horizons Award
Melbourne Int'l. Film Festival
Bright Horizons Award
Melbourne Int'l. Film Festival
Official Selection
Karlovy Vary Int'l. Film Festival
Karlovy Vary Int'l. Film Festival
Official Selection
Toronto Int'l. Film Festival
Toronto Int'l. Film Festival
Official Selection
Busan Int'l. Film Festival
Busan Int'l. Film Festival
Official Selection
Hamptons Int'l. Film Festival
Hamptons Int'l. Film Festival
Official Selection
BFI London Film Festival
BFI London Film Festival
Official Selection
Vancouver Int'l. Film Festival
Vancouver Int'l. Film Festival
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