IN THE CINÉMA CLUB OF… JEAN-PIERRE & LUC DARDENNE

Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne are revered as masters of cinematic realism. Their films pose hard ethical questions and portray society’s marginalized with remarkable humanism. They began making documentaries in their twenties as a form of intervention during political turbulence in the ‘70s, even forming a video workshop called Collectif Dérive to encourage social solidarity. They later pivoted to narrative filmmaking, breaking out into international acclaim with La promesse (1996) and going on to win two Cannes Palme d’Ors for Rosetta (1999)—starring a young and mesmerizing Émilie Dequenne—and L’enfant (2005). In 2011 they won the Cannes Grand Prix award for The Kid with a Bike and they have persisted making powerful, radically minimal films that foreground the dispossessed.

Their latest Tori and Lokita, a thriller about two young African migrants struggling to survive in present-day Belgium, won the 75th Anniversary Prize at Cannes and is a New York Times Critic’s Pick. On the occasion of the film’s release, the brothers shared five films they love.