theartsdesk Q&A: director Leonardo Van Dijl discusses his sexual abuse drama 'Julie Keeps Quiet'

"Julie's story takes place everywhere", says the writer-director Leonardo Van Dijl, whose psychological drama Julie Keeps Quiet has little to do with its sports milieu per se. "Uncovering systemic abuse often starts by listening to the silence and paying attention to the people who don't speak out."

Star tennis academician Julie (played by newcomer Tessa Van den Broeck) is one of them. The teenager's life revolves around being out on court. Her coach, Jeremy (Laurent Caron), has pushed her hard to get her to an important qualifying tournament. But as the day of the competition approaches, he is suspended from duty by the academy following another student's suicide.

When the investigation begins, Julie remains silent about her own experience with Jeremy, insisting that she is fine. But Belgian director Van Dijl's tense, often eerie debut feature, which was co-produced by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, reveals that more has gone on behind the scenes than Julie is prepared to admit.

Interviewed via Zoom after his film's impressive festival run, Van Dijl (pictured below) talks about what is ultimately a carefully observed character study, one that builds on calm before staring into the abyss.

PAMELA JAHN: The kinds of toxic coach-trainee relationships that you portray in the film exist across the board, not only in the world of sport. What made you turn your attention to tennis?

LEONARDO VAN DIJL: My intention was not to target sports or tennis specifically. It was simply a community that I knew. I play tennis myself. I could count on the support of the coaches and my friends to make this film. But I always only aimed to give justice to Julie, to her silence, and I wanted to bring some kindness back into a narrative that felt extremely polluted, especially five years ago when I started writing the script. Interestingly, no one ever tried to stop or silence me. It was even Tessa [Van den Broeck]'s coach who encouraged her to audition for the role and, at some point, the Japanese professional tennis player Naomi Osaka came on board as an executive producer. All this helped to make Julie's silence as loud as possible, and that's for me the most important thing.

What is it about player-coach-relationship that creates the kind of power imbalance that can lead to potential abuse?

It's interesting you ask that because this is something that I understood more and more while making the film. When you're a young athlete, when you have that ambition, you have no limits. You have no boundaries because you want to become a better player. It's like no-pay-no-game. That's your biggest strength, and, at the same time, it's your Achilles' heel. There's a fine line where it's easy for somebody else, like your coach, to take control over you, just by saying don't listen to anybody else, only listen to me because I'm the only one who can help you get where you want to be. This intimacy can go wrong in a heartbeat.

Have you asked yourself, what you would have done in Julie's place?

The answer is in the film. But the point for me is that we, as a society, need to be there to help people break their silence. We need to put pressure on the subject, we need to take actions to address the issue because if people don't speak up, nothing will change. But – and it's a big but – we also need to be willing to listen to silence. It's almost like we are still skipping that part. We are very impatient. However, if we really want things to improve, then we need to learn how to detect silence. We need to see the red lights and question things before it's too late.

What makes Julie withdraw herself in the first place?

Jeremy is tough, but he's also a great coach. So far, nobody has ever questioned him. And then, one day, he's expelled, and there's an inquiry going on. But why [in Julie's situation] would you feel safe talking to the same people who, yesterday, were celebrating him? It's something that I wanted to show – this complex ambiguity towards his character and the situation as a whole. Of course, Jeremy tries to keep Julie on his side. He puts her under pressure. But her parents, the club, her peers, they all do the same. It's almost like she's being bullied from both sides. The only healthy relationship she has for a long part of the film is with her dog.

Julie is a teenager on the verge of becoming an adult. Does her age make things even more complicated?

Yes. As a teenager, she's extremely mature. We expect her to know herself, at least to a certain degree. But at the same time, she's still a child that is being robbed of the right to be innocent. It breaks my heart that she has to deal with these things that I don't think anyone should be dealing with, and to make choices that even for adults are often impossible to bear.

One of the most difficult tasks, cinematically, is to show silence on screen. How did you approach that?

I see the film as like an ancient Greek tragedy. The fact that Julie keeps quiet creates the conflict – it pushes the story further. Almost every British film that I love is about restraint. Remains of the Day [1993] or example. I watch that movie every year, and I'm always, like, shouting at the screen, "Why are you [Stevens the butler] not saying it? [admitting his love for the housekeeper Miss Kenton]"  Maybe I'm more explicit in my film, but a lot of great stories have the same kind of beat or structure.

Why was important to you to show Jeremy in the film?

He was always present. I felt like there should be one scene where Jeremy and Julie encounter each other, where we can see how he talks, how he behaves. But it didn't make sense for me to create flashbacks. I only wanted to show what the audience needed to know – or, in other words, what Julie needs to know to proceed with her life.

Is part of the problem with abuse the fact that coaches can become more ambitious or fanatical than the athletes themselves?

I will explain it with how I experience the relationship as a director with an actor or actress. Actually, one of the tennis coaches gave me advice. He said, "It should never be about you. Because if you start putting yourself first, you create a kind of awareness in the athlete that they shouldn't have. Their focus should be fixed on their ambitions, on their performance. You're just there to coach, to direct." In the end, it's the athlete or the actor who has to deliver.

There's a powerful contrast between light and darkness in the film. Does the truth always lie in the shadows?

Probably. But what is the truth? Going back to the Greeks, look at Oedipus Rex, for example, where seeking the truth is completely destructive. It's difficult to grasp the multitudes of truths. There is one truth that is out there in the sunshine, and there's another one that withholds. For me, it was very important not to simplify the story in any way, especially the ending. I tried to liberate parts of Julie, to show that there is light at the end of the tunnel. But she's also creating her own truth.

How can we create more courage in victims of abuse to speak up?

Like I said, people need to feel that they are being listened to. To me, that's the biggest problem. Far too many people still get turned away. It's the same in church than it is on a tennis court. Or in the movie industry, of course.

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