Hans Otten

Set on the eve of World War I, this poetic coming-of-age drama follows Elias, a sensitive twelve-year-old dreamer living on an isolated country estate. Raised by an eccentric, overprotective family detached from reality, Elias finds refuge in nature and his vivid imagination to escape his internal struggles. His fragile childhood bubble is shattered when he learns he will soon be sent away to a strict boarding school. During his final summer at home, Elias experiences a bittersweet emotional awakening shaped by three relatives: his older cousin and close companion Aloysius, his young cousin Hermine, who harbors a subtle infatuation for him, and his beautiful, melancholic Aunt Henriette, who serves as a dramatic muse. Based on Maurice Gilliams’ modernist classic, the film is a nostalgic, melancholic portrait of a boy forced to leave his idyllic fantasies behind and face the adult world.

At the invitation of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Dutch conductor Jules Coulée returns to the Netherlands to conduct a one-off performance of Third Symphony by Gustav Mahler. Coulée is unpleasantly surprised when he sees that the Concertgebouw is under construction and that the renovations continue during rehearsals. In addition, the acoustics of the hall are terribly bad and the balcony too close, so that the post horn solo in the third movement cannot possibly come from afar, as the score prescribes. For Coulée, the entire implementation stands or falls with this detail.