My Queen Karo

Colour, 35 mm
Belgium, Netherlands, 2009, 102 min
Section: Focus on Belgian Film

Synopsis

Set in an Amsterdam commune, this partly autobiographical revisit to the early ’70s is told through the eyes of the ten-year-old main character who is desperately trying to fathom what all the adults around her are up to. It’s an exciting, yet very confusing situation in which the young Karo (Anna Franziska Jäger) finds herself when she and her father Raven (Matthias Schoenaerts) and mother Dalia (Déborah François, from the Dardenne film The Child) leave Belgium for a squat in the former hippy paradise of Amsterdam. By now Karo is quite used to the antics of her artistic and impassioned parents but things go a little too fast for her in the commune. Her main problem is not knowing how to stay loyal to her revolutionary father and, at the same time, her more pragmatic mother. But children are flexible, as filmmaker Dorothée van den Berghe is aware. Then and now. We can only guess at what might have happened to Raven and Dalia next but, for Karo, things certainly turn out well.

About the director

Dorothée van den Berghe (b. 1969, Ghent) started out studying painting and sculpture but before long she decided it wasn’t for her: "Those images are still. I want moving images.” In the early 1990s she made several short films (including Bekentenissen, Rue Verte and Bruxelles minuit), and directed a number of documentaries (e.g. Kamermeisjes) and television movies (such as Het achterland). In 2002 she made her writer-director debut with the feature Girl (Meisje), winning prizes at Amiens and Locarno, among others. In 2009 she shot her second film for the big screen, the semi-autobiographical My Queen Karo. Dorothée van den Berghe: "Women make much more use of the senses when filming. I think it’s our physique that makes the difference. A woman bears children, she’s closer to everyday life, and this is what’s reflected in female films.”