Catherine Grosjean

Jules, 18 years old, reluctantly spends his holidays in the naturist campsite of his childhood. He is torn between his attraction for the beautiful Karim, a seasonal worker on the textile beach, and the depression of his mother Adèle, who refuses to let him grow up.

A bereft filmmaker asks a series of women to pose nude for his camera in this striking and moody short film by Belgium's Olivier Smolders. The silent encounters act as counterpoint to a contemplative internal monologue musing on love, loss and the subtle power-plays of aversion and desire underway in an atmosphere pervaded by an irresistible erotic gloom. Filmed in a lustrous black and white, the themes explored find their perfect compliment in the stark, fascinated, all-embracing gaze of the camera. - Robert Avila