52 Films by Women Vol 3. 49. HOME (Director: Fien Troch)
According to the United Nations’ ‘ World Happiness Report ’, Belgium was the sixteenth happiest country in the world in the period 2015 to 2017, above United States (18 th ) and the United Kingdom (19 th ). In the case of the latter, 48% of us aren’t very happy about Brexit so we should be lower. However, Belgium doesn’t seem such a jolly place from its cinema. At the beginning of Home , co-written and directed by Fien Troch ( Someone Else’s Happiness , Kid ), a teenage girl, Lina (Lena Suijkerbuijk) is reprimanded for suggesting that a teacher abused children, keeping them in the basement. Lina resents the fact that of all the kids who said the same thing, she is the one being pulled up on this. In another film, this might be the catalyst for a drama about telling tales, but Lina, we discover, is just a supporting character. Troch’s focus is on Kevin (Sebastian Van Dun), a seventeen year old boy recently released from a juvenile detention centre for his part in a violent and qu...