Someone Else´s Happiness

Colour, 35 mm
Belgium, Netherlands, 2005, 98 min
Section: Forum of Independents

Synopsis

Christine’s life changes when she discovers a child’s body by the side of the road, killed in a hit-and-run accident and left for dead. When the news breaks, the whole village is in a state of shock and the longer the search for the killer goes on, the more the facts are obscured. When the tension reaches fever pitch, the child’s death becomes a pretext for renewing long buried resentments and settling old scores. Yet, in a small village where everyone’s lives are interlinked, no one is truly innocent and everyone has blood on their hands. An unusually strong portrait of a seemingly perfect and cold modern world, where nothing is the way it seems.

About the director

Fien Troch (b. 1978) graduated from the film programme at the Saint-Lucas Institute of Higher Education in Brussels. She appeared as an actor in Patricia Mazuy’s Saint-Cyr (2000). Her short films include Verbrande Aarde (1998), Wooww (1999), which won the Canal+ Award at the Kort Film Festival in Belgium, Maria (2000) and Cool Sam and Sweet Suzie (2002), both of which screened at numerous international film festivals. Someone Else’s Happiness (2005) is her first feature film.