Le Fils

In the carpenter workshop of a center for social reintegration, Olivier teaches young people in carpentry. When sixteen-year-old Francis presents himself, he refuses at first. Nevertheless, Olivier keeps seeing the boy: he studies his dossier and follows him from a distant. Eventually, he takes him as his student. While Francis finds a mentor in him, only Olivier knows which painful history connects them. Between them, a complex relationship grows in which trust, guilt, and the desire to approach collide with distance and restraint.

In LE FILS, education takes shape on the workbench, where the relationship between master and pupil develops while working with wood. Olivier passes down more than technical knowledge alone. Practicing a profession asks for patience and attention, but also a way of presence and dealing with a situation in which his craftmanship doesn’t offer support. Olivier must find an attitude without knowing upfront which is the right one.

The brothers Dardenne keep their camera close to Olivier’s body. What stays unexpressed, takes shape in his gestures and the moments he turns to Francis. The film shows craftmanship and education not as a fixed method, but as an attentive practice in which you have to keep searching for the right attitude to the other.

This screening is part of ‘Gemaakt’ by Crafting Futures, a film series highlighting crafts and the value of making.