Playground

Nora is seven and starting primary school. Her older brother Abel is at the same school, and she sees him being attacked in the playground. Abel makes her promise to say nothing. She is frightened and loyal at once, caught between the world of the teachers and the world of the children. Laura Wandel directs, in her first feature. Maya Vanderbeque plays Nora and Günter Duret plays Abel. The decisive choice is technical: the camera stays at Nora's height for the entire film. Adult faces are often out of frame, their conversations half heard, and decisions arrive from somewhere above and unseen. The playground therefore stays exactly as a child perceives it: a place whose rules are unclear and whose help is out of reach. It runs seventy two minutes and never eases off. It screened in Un Certain Regard at Cannes in 2021 and took the FIPRESCI prize, and was Belgium's Oscar submission that year. The French title is Un monde, a world, which is what the playground is when you are inside it. Who it is for: viewers who want childhood without romance, and first features with a real formal idea. Who it is not for: it is genuinely hard to sit through. The bullying scenes are short but offer no way out.