Inside 'Coward' With Lucas Dhont | Croisette Conversations

Added: 2026-05-21

[00:00:07]Your film premieres here on Wednesday.

[00:00:09]Or >> On Thursday.

[00:00:10]>> Thursday. Okay, so it's it's off in the horizon for most of us. We will get to talk about it, but Kenneth, that's not new for you. This is kind of bringing a film here for the third time. Is Does it feel easier when you come for the third time? Do you feel like you know what you're doing? Do you know what to expect? I mean, I feel I feel less of a tourist than when I felt what I felt like at 26 premiering our first film here. When I had no idea what to expect at all. I wouldn't say it gets easier. I mean, this is a a very ambitious project for us. We worked on it with many hands, many hearts. And so I think everyone's really excited and nervous to show this to its first global cinema audience. And I think it's a film in which we we tried to take as many risks as possible. We tried to be brave, I would say. And so I really hope that, you know, that first audience is going to resonate with it.

[00:01:06]Yeah. Well, having gotten to see it, lucky me, I I think that will happen.

[00:01:10]But so to rewind, it's a World War I film, a World War I war film. And I think a lot of people have a certain idea of what that might be. And for you, this starts with you finding a photo from World War I that looked like nothing what you thought you would find there. And I want you to talk about what the photo was, but also what brought you to that point. Were you kind of thinking about wars? Were you thinking about the past? Or did you really just stumble upon this image that inspired this film?

[00:01:33]Yeah. I mean, first of all, I have to say I'm I I live in Belgium. Um my partner is from West Flanders. And so we drive through the fields in which a big part of the First World War was fought. You know, we pass these cemeteries in which all these young men are buried. So the First World War is very is a part of our conscience, you know, on a on a on a daily basis. Um but it's only when I found this black and white photograph of young soldiers who were um cross-dressing uh in the camp right behind the front line while they were waiting to be sent back to fight.

[00:02:18]>> Yeah. That I was I was surprised by that image. It's like an image I hadn't seen before.

[00:02:24]>> Mhm. You know, these men had made sandbags into skirts.

[00:02:29]They were smiling.

[00:02:31]They were expressing themselves in such a free way that I thought, "Why uh throughout my young life have I seen so many films about war, about violence, about men destroying, and have I not seen that many of those images of men um finding light Mhm. and finding beauty and creating beauty in that setting? And that was for me the starting point where um I started to dive into the archives and try to really do a lot of research.

[00:03:07]And when I found so many more pictures of this um you know, this idea of creating shows and creating arts while men were at war, while they were, you know, had time to kill and when their thoughts and the world around them got so gloomy, is something that happens in all the armies throughout the centuries.

[00:03:29]>> That is fascinating cuz it makes sense when you think about it, right? That everyone needs a relief from this intensity, but it's never talked about.

[00:03:36]Like it's I'm sure there are historians who know about it, but it's so hidden. I know. And even like when I went to a lot of museum, like I went to we went to the Imperial War Museum in London which has exhibitions uh that tells you about forts that were won or lost, which shows the tanks. You know, those image images weren't at display. It's only when you dive into the archives that you find the leaflets of these shows, that you find more pictures of these men creating another world for themselves, another possibility. And to me, that was a proof of the fact that we live in a world where images of brutality and violence are pushed more to the into the light than these images of community and connection, especially concerning men. I think we live in a in a very patriarchal world that values competition and and a stoicness and harshness more than these images of the of the tender and the soft. And I really saw possibility for me there to add something to this conversation, I would say.

[00:04:51]>> So, it's toxic masculinity's fault, as usual, most things. I mean, I'm always It's just I feel that we are living in a time where of course, we're confronted and we take the time to see how how men have destroyed, but for me, it's important in this time because we worked with so many young men that were an incredible inspiration to me. It's really important for me to highlight and um show this other type of being a man. You know, one of the bits in a in a journal that I found that really moved me is a young soldier describing that a comrade of theirs had transformed into their mother and had come to kiss them good night. And this is a form of man maleness. This is a form of masculinity that has existed throughout centuries, that has always been there, but that hasn't always been given the attention.

[00:05:53]>> Mhm. When I work with these 25, sometimes 150 young men on the set, I was moved by their their ability to speak about their insides, and yet um I don't think we always allow them the space uh to exist so freely and and so it for me that's really >> Now, even with these young actors you're working with who are >> Even now >> today, yeah. Even now, I mean um I remember very well we were writing the script of this film and there were elections in Belgium and there was this TV program in which um very important politicians went to uh classes and uh every student could ask them a question, and there was this young man who's really afraid of uh the the the the pressure of war on Europe. And he asked this question, "What happens if Belgium uh is uh brought into the war? Will there be military service for um uh expected military military service for all of us?" And this politician returned the question and he said, "You know, who of you wouldn't fight if uh Belgium was under attack?" And nearly all the young men in that space, nearly all the young men in that space raised their hands. And so this young man of which we could feel he he clearly feared, you know, felt obliged someway to also raise his hand, and I do think we have expected um young men to answer like that.

[00:07:30]>> Yeah.

[00:07:31]You know.

[00:07:32]>> Whether or not they actually feel ready for it. Absolutely. Well, you were talking about where you live in Belgium that you're driving past these graveyards, and World War I is such a a thing for Belgium specifically, and your previous two films have been about younger people, less kind of rooted in history. Do you think there is something specifically Belgian about this? Not that it's Not that it's not for global audiences, but is Are you trying to do something more specifically rooted in your home country with this film?

[00:07:56]Um I I Of course, this is I mean, Belgium is very connected to that part of history. But for me, I was really inspired by a film like Fear and Desire by Kubrick, which is about war and about men being at war, but doesn't necessarily name the the conflict. I mean, that's different in our case, but for me, I was much more interested in topics that concern us all, you know, the way that we repress what we feel in order to continue, the way that we look for light in music, in singing and dancing, which for me have as much to do with that moment in time as it's is talking about today.

[00:08:42]>> Yeah. You know, as it's talking about people who are in that war, >> Yeah. but are uh surrounded by it, by images of that and her trying to find an escape to it.

[00:08:53]>> Yeah. Um so, I you know, my my editor, before editing editing this film, he was working on a documentary uh on Ukraine today, and there were so many similar images somehow to in that documentary as there are in in this fiction film, and I believe that um yeah, I really just wanted to talk about the human condition.

[00:09:19]>> Yeah, the war in some ways war a war is a kind of the same across time. Like you were saying with the soldiers and what they've done throughout centuries.

[00:09:27]Yeah. So, this film has this sense of discovery through art, of these kind of men allowing themselves this freedom.

[00:09:32]And you've also got a love story, which is a very different kind of discovery.

[00:09:35]And we've seen stories of love in wartime and queer love during wartime, but there is something special to me about combining them, that you have these guys who are 18, who know so little about themselves, and kind of discovering these things at the same time. And did you really feel like that was pairing them, that falling in love with someone at learning about other people, and learning that about yourself are kind of the same thing at that age?

[00:09:56]Yeah. I mean, that's a great question. I think that when when I started this project, um I realized that in in that specific time, during the First World War, there's a really weird contradiction, and that is that young queer men found each other through war.

[00:10:19]But but you leave your hometown, and all of a sudden you meet someone you never would have, yeah.

[00:10:22]>> Exactly. You leave your hometown.

[00:10:25]Uh you meet a lot of young men who are who are conditioned to do the same thing as you, and so for queer men who were and who lived in a time where that love was unspeakable love, they connected to other queer men, and they were able to have, in many cases, um love stories, which were a little bit um disconnected from society, because they were living in a bubble.

[00:10:51]Uh uh they were away from home, they were away from their situations, and say so something could flourish also.

[00:10:59]>> Yeah.

[00:10:59]And that was a weird contradiction to me that that wartime, which is so violent, also in a way is a time of liberation >> Mhm. for these people uh for them.

[00:11:12]And of course to me what is incredibly emotional is that all these young lives uh throughout, yeah, centuries have been sacrificed for for war, and that these young men who know so little discover pleasure also, and discover another body, a a body that they don't have to hurt, but a body that they can caress or that they can love. Yeah. And that for me had something incredibly uh hopeful uh hopeful to it. Yeah, well, I'm glad you mentioned hope cuz the you know, you can make a movie about World War I and you're not shying away from the blood and the horror of it, but it's a more hopeful movie than I thought it would be. You know, even in these really awful circumstances. And when did when did you know that was important to you? You know, not to talk about how it ends, but just having a more hopeful version of what a life can be like in those circumstances.

[00:12:05]I mean, I think there's this question to lingering throughout the film of of fear, you know, it's there's this theme of fear in the film, which is it's the fear towards another, you know, this this creation of the enemy that we're supposed to fear. These Germans who they are not very nice to. Yeah, it's it's it's this question of fearing another, but there's also this question in the film of fear towards oneself. You know, sometimes we are so afraid of a part of ourselves that we can't live freely and truly. And I think this film is also about characters choosing to live freely and truly and to choose not only to survive, but to live a very uncompromising life. Yeah.

[00:12:56]And and I think that's something that's there's something really beautiful and hopeful for many, I suppose, who are maybe struggling sometimes with that fear towards the the inner world.

[00:13:08]Uh I think in that sense our characters are really yeah, like you say, they they they bring a lot of life and they bring a lot of light into that conversation.

[00:13:16]>> Well, and that brings you to the title Coward, which is I think probably intentionally provocative. Like you want to you you get people questioning the meaning of that word with that title.

[00:13:24]How did that become what made sense of the title for this? I think it comes up in a lot of ways throughout the film.

[00:13:28]>> Yeah. I mean, I realized that that's a word, of course, that has a lot of weight on it, you know? Even when you start learning how to write a script, from the beginning, it's about developing a hero's journey. You know, that word of the hero is omnipresent.

[00:13:45]It's It's It's this thing It's this dream, you know, to be a hero.

[00:13:49]And I think throughout time many people have been so afraid to be called a coward that they have um have unfortunately uh died because of it.

[00:14:03]>> Mhm. And I think we, as a society, have defined what it means to be coward very much linked to the ability, especially for men, uh the ability to harm, the ability to destroy, the ability to continue even though you're hurt mentally or physically.

[00:14:22]And I just wanted with this film to maybe re-question what it actually means to be uh human and what it actually means to be a hero or a coward.

[00:14:36]>> Yeah. Um And I hope that the film does that in some ways.

[00:14:41]>> see it, though, they'll know exactly what you mean. So, you used what? 150 young actors or so that you had in this?

[00:14:48]>> I mean, we had on on And that was for me one I think it's one of the most spiritual I've never made a film that had such a spiritual impact on me because we shot this film, all of it, we shot it in West Flanders. So, we shot it actually on the ground where that war was fought. And so, there were times when we were there with 150 young men uh singing and dancing and creating life. And in in in a way, it was like we were we were traveling through time and we were like giving a sort of homage to all these lives that uh that exist that that were shed there unfortunately. So, yeah, we had like 150 young energies. Uh we I mean, our main cast is like 25 young men and then we had so many extras come with us and it was a I mean, it was a yeah, it was an an an intense but a very beautiful moment to us to shoot it there. What do you learn when you scale up in your filmmaking like that? When you have like two fairly intimate dramas as your first films, then you've got 150 people and guns and outdoor cameras and everything else. How does that What do you take away from that of knowing what you're capable of after you pull that off?

[00:16:09]I mean, who wants to go far goes together. Like you can't I would have never been able to do this without all the desire of my crew. My crew who is was in this case quite quite big. And I'm what I'm most thankful for is that within all that chaos because of course, having all those elements creates um sometimes a a wanted sense of chaos. We were able to focus on what is the most important part, I think, of our cinema and that is that it's it it it creates a sort of intimacy with the people you see on screen and it there's really we allow you to be this character or with this character, a companion to them for 2 hours in this case and to not lose the emotional world and and and not be distraught by all the elements around.

[00:17:06]Yeah. Um but it's it was really fun for me to There was a lot of live singing on set.

[00:17:13]Um we had a lot of music.

[00:17:15]Uh we had 150 extras sometimes. we had a crater, we had So, there were all these elements Yeah, we had a crater.

[00:17:22][laughter] We had like all these elements that that brought in new challenges for me, and I was really like I said in the beginning of this conversation, and I hope that doesn't sound obnoxious, but I really tried to be to take risks with this film.

[00:17:36]Um, and um, and yeah, but my biggest takeaway is that this is a making a film is a collaboration.

[00:17:45]>> Yeah. Well, so last question that may be too big for it, but what was the biggest risk then? You said you wanted to take a lot of them. What felt like the or the one that paid off the most?

[00:17:54]For me, what what paid off the most is that I think we we really allowed the characters and the story to become incredibly vulnerable. I mean, there is a scene, I don't want to spoil too much, but there's a scene in the middle of the film where there's this this uh shed full with uh men who are like shouting and screaming, and then there's a performance in the middle of that, which is a song brought in so in in the most high-pitched voice possible. And for me, it's one of the most It's It's It's It's a climax of vulnerability. Uh, and I think we in the writing, but also in the making, we allowed much more um, sweetness, you know, more than maybe in the other films.

[00:18:48]There's much more light. There's There's humor, I think. There's really um, there's characters trying to um, create something special for the others. And in a way, I think we really tried that as a team as well to create an a viewing experience that hopefully you won't forget.

[00:19:10]>> Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm so excited for more people to get to see it and for you to have another can premiere. So, thank you so much for coming here to talk about the film. Congratulations on it.

[00:19:18]Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Bye.

[00:19:23]>> [music]