Leonardo Van Dijl smiles: “If you told me a year ago that I’d be speaking to the Guardian, I’d have asked: ‘What about?’” Last May, the 34-year-old from Belgium took his debut film Julie Keeps Quiet to Cannes. (Where, he says, everyone was much friendlier aftera four-star reviewin the Guardian.) Ever since, he has been living out of a suitcase, grabbing five or six hours’ sleep. It’s not just media interviews and Q&As keeping him busy: “We are a small movie. I’m the in-house graphic designer. I do the social media …” He stops, looks down at my phone, recording. “But I don’t really want to talk about that. I’m grateful, and it’s not that interesting.”
What Van Dijl really does want to talk about is the urgent issue his film raises about safe spaces for children. Julie Keeps Quiet is a tense psychological drama about a talented 15-year-old tennis player called Julie, played by real-life tennis ace Tessa Van den Broeck in her first acting role. When Julie’s male coach at her tennis academy is suspended after the suicide of a teenage girl he trained, pressure falls on Julie to speak up. After all, she’s his new favourite.
But Julie is not talking. It is immediately clear to the audience from texts and calls, however, that her coach is a predator. Mercifully, we only see him in a couple of scenes: just enough to get across what a disgusting narcissist he is. I tell Van Dijl how relieved I was that the coach hardly appears in the film. “It’s like a ghost movie.” he agrees. “Like he’s haunting her.”
But not everyone is OK with the scant screen time Julie’s abuser gets. People have asked Van Dijl, whatreallyhappened? “But I think the movie shows enough red flags to know that this is not a good person. That he should not be around children.” He looks pained. Does it upset him, when people want to know all the details? “Yeah,” he says softly. “It does.”
Van Dijl became interested in the subject of children in sport while making a short film about a 12-year-old star gymnast who doesn’t tell when she picks up an injury, and pretends everything is OK. What he’s noticed is how children in sport are treated like mini adults. “And it’s wrong.” We see this form of adultification in the film. Julie is just 15 but she is often alone unsupervised with adults – her physio or coaches at the tennis court. “These children who play sports, they go places. It becomes a normality,” says Van Dijl.
Interestingly, he has observed some people treating the character of Julie as if she were older than she is too. A journalist asked him a question about portraying Julie not as a conventional victim, but a “strong, independent young woman”. He was horrified. “It was very triggering. First, what is a conventional victim? A victim is a victim. Then, I was like: ‘A strong, young, independent woman? She is a child. What does she do in the movie? She plays a few balls. She cuddles her dog. She goes to high school and reads comic books at night. Where is the adult in my movie?’ This is exactly the language that somebody uses to groom a girl like Julie. By making her believe that there is equality.”
Right from the start, Van Dijl decided to cast a tennis player rather than an actor. “I had six months. I could not prepare a kid who acts to play tennis in six months. Then Tessa walked in and she was obviously a superstar.” He invited Van den Broeck to take part in a six-week workshop, then gave her breathing space, two months to think about whether she wanted to be in the film. “I told her we were considering a few girls [for the lead]. It was a lie, but I didn’t want any pressure on her.”
On set, he put his money where his mouth was when it came to Van den Broeck’s wellbeing. “I wanted a happy child on set.” He told her parents that they were welcome on set, that he would prefer them to be around: “I said to the parents, we need to communicate. We need to talk about Tessa’s wellbeing. If there’s something wrong, tell me or tell production.” He cast young players from Van den Broeck’s tennis club to surround her and gave firm instructions to his young star too: “I said to Tessa: ‘The moment I say action, you’re Julie. The moment I say cut, you’re instantly back to Tessa.’”
His research into safe child practices informed the set. “I never wanted to be alone with the kids. I was always like: there needs to be a third person in the room. We also rehearsed at the tennis clubs, in public spaces. I encouraged them: just ask us questions. It starts with the small things. If a child doesn’t dare to ask: ‘Can I leave 15 minutes early?’ how will they talk about the horrible things that Julie has endured.”
Julie Keeps Quiet has an impressive list of producers. It is co-produced by Belgium’s most famous film-makers, the Dardenne brothers. Van Dijl himself studied documentary film-making while working at Vice magazine as a fashion editor: “I love clothes. There it is, it’s out,” he grins. Today he is sharply dressed in white shirt and skinny black tie.
Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka signed up as executive producer too. Van Dijl says she is an inspiration to teenage players after speaking up about her mental health. Osaka was famously fined after pulling out of media commitments at Roland-Garros in 2021 to protect her mental health. “She put that option of saying ‘no’ on the table. She did that for the girls. That’s extremely valuable.”
He says he still can’t believe Osaka is attached to his film, which was Belgium’s entry for the best international film at this year’s Oscars. “It’s what I said. Even six months ago if you told me I would be here, I wouldn’t believe it. When I say I’m very grateful, I really mean it.”
Julie Keeps Quiet is released in the UK on 25 April
In the UK and Ireland,Samaritanscan be contacted on freephone 116 123, or emailjo@samaritans.orgorjo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text theNational Suicide Prevention Lifelineon 988, chat on988lifeline.org, ortext HOMEto 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support serviceLifelineis 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found atbefrienders.org