Elsa Houben

Arthur, 15, has a crush on Ouassima, who does not even look at him ... While he has never been upset, she goes out with Matt, the handsome kid from college. To get closer to her, Arthur gathers a group of single losers and offers to give them lessons in fishing, at 10 euros per lesson. In the changing rooms of the swimming pool, a long intimate and collective learning begins on "girls and love: instructions for use".

Following the separation of her parents, Tania, 14 years old, arrives in a French middle school. Having grown up in Finland, she experiences this event as a real uprooting. Especially since she played a very special sport there, "hobby horsing", in a very close-knit team.

Cadence runs away during an unwanted road trip with her mother. Looking through her binoculars leads her to an unexpected meeting with two refugees.

Mathilde, aged 9, enjoys her last day of summer holidays at the seaside with her group of friends. Her father falsely interprets one of their games.

After ten years abroad, Catherine returns to Luxembourg, to catch up with her daughter Alba, brought up by Catherine’s mother Elisabeth. Alba is cold and distant with this stranger showing up unexpectedly in her life, so is Elisabeth, keen to keep her protégée to herself. One day, Catherine cannot take it anymore. She kidnaps Alba and takes her on a trip to a lake up North. Begins an unsettling journey into the puzzling world of motherly love, only to find out that sometimes the true opponent is yourself.

In “The Girl,” art historical traditions of the panorama, landscape painting, and German-Romantic notions of melancholy and the sublime converge with the technological advances of cinema to create a powerful work that both unsettles and inspires.