EUROPEAN FILM FESTIVAL: Young Mothers (Belgium)

The 13th European Film Festival South Africa is here. Over 10 days across 4 cities, audiences will have the opportunity to see some of the best films in current European cinema, fresh from Cannes, Venice, Berlin and beyond. Featuring award-winning films by giants of European cinema alongside bold new voices and starring Europe’s biggest names: this year's films follow families of all kinds — biological, chosen, broken, rebuilding — fighting to hold together and carve out a future against everything working to pull them apart.

ALL FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILMS WILL BE SCREENED WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES.

SEE THE FULL BIOSCOPE PROGRAM HERE

Young Mothers (Belgium)

Directed by Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne. Drama. 1hrs 45mins.

For 40 years the two-time Palme D’or winning Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne have quietly redefined European social realist cinema with their emotionally powerful, empathetically observed dramas shedding light on those living in the margins of society. Winner of the Best Screenplay award at Cannes, the Dardennes’ latest tells the small but deeply affecting stories of a group of young mothers at a care shelter in the brothers’ hometown of Liège. These young women, many still teenagers in school, have chosen to give birth despite social stigma, patriarchal cowardice, poverty and addiction. With little but each other and the women who run the home to rely on they must confront their own issues of abandonment and self-worth as they grapple with the challenges facing both young mothers and the future of the world their children will inherit.

Selected for the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. Belgium's official submission for Best International Feature Film at the 98th Academy Awards.