30/5 — 5/6/2024
64th International Film Festival
for Children and Youth

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Section: International Competition of European First Feature Films

Cleo (2019) 15

Belgium | 2019 | 105 min.

Six months after surviving the car accident that killed her parents, Cleo is only just beginning to feel like herself again. The 17-year-old — who now lives with her grandmother along with her 7-year-old brother Bruno — is ready to revisit her favorite haunt, Club 7, for drinking and dancing with friends. For the first time, she seems to find an escape from her sorrow. So when a mysterious loner named Leos rescues her from a bar fight, Cleo doesn’t tell him about her parents. She merely mentions that she hates cars when he reveals he is an auto mechanic. Although Leos is over ten years older than Cleo, the two become friends, and, perhaps naively, Cleo hopes the relationship will become romantic. But the brooding Leos, who curiously doesn’t carry a cell phone, is dealing with his own troubled past.

CountryBelgium
Year2019
Duration105 min
Rating15
LanguageDutch, French
SubtitleCzech, English
Directed by Eva Cools
Screenplay Eva Cools
Director of Photography Brecht Goyvaerts
Music Mauro Pawlowski
Edited by Alain Dessevauge
Contact Be For Films

Biography

She studied audiovisual at the Luca University of the Arts in Brussels. She has directed successful short authorial films, e.g. El Camino del Deseo (2007), Las Meninas (2012) and Everything Comes Back (Alles komt terug, 2014). She debuted with the feature drama Cleo (2019). She also writes.

Love, Drama, Psychology, Youth, Female Director, Empathy, First Feature, Illness + Death