By Jake Coyle, Film Writer
CANNES, France (AP) --Lukas Dhont's sensitive coming-of-age film "Close," about the tender friendship of two 13-year-old boys whose bond is tragically separated, has provided a late, emotional wallop at the Cannes Film Festival.
"Close," the Belgian director's second film after his controversy-generating debut "Girl," has emerged as one of the standouts at Cannes, and one of the most poignant. While heartbreak in film is usually expressed through romantic relationships, Dhont's movie traces the painful fallout of two exceptionally close boys who drift apart when their intimacy is ridiculed.
"It comes from deep within," Dhont said in an interview on a balcony in Cannes a few days before the Thursday premiere of "Close." "When I was young because of fear I had for this closeness, I think I pushed a lot of friends away. If I hadn't done that, maybe they would have still been in my life. Maybe we would have had long and amazing friendships. It's something I still think about."
In "Close," which A24 acquired for distribution just ahead of its debut, the first breezy scenes between Leo (Eden Dambrine) and Remi (Gustav De Waele) are of running freely through fiends in summertime. Once they get to school, they still sweetly drape and lean on each other, but their mutual affection brings scorn and queer labels that Leo, at least, isn't ready to accept. Leo instead turns guarded and defensive with his feelings, which crushes Remi.
For the 31-year-old Dhont, who was closeted in his teenage years, "Close" is a film he describes as "part of me."
"I have the feeling that I've been waiting to make this film for a long time," he says. "I was a boy who had the feeling that I didn't really belong. I didn't really belong to the group of girls in my school and I didn't really belong with the group of boys in my school. So I disconnected in many ways from the people around me in school, and also the boys who tried to be friends with me. I lost a lot of precious friendships because I was just scared of them. I was scared of that closeness, scared to be a labeled a certain way."
Dhont's film is in competition for the Palme d'Or, an award some are predicting he'll take home Saturday. Whether Dhont wins or not, the Cannes platform has returned him to the global spotlight after "Girl" was consumed by a firestorm of debate and criticism. After the film won the Caméra d'Or for best first feature in Cannes and landed enthusiastic reviews, many in the LGBTQ community questioned Dhont telling a story about a teenage ballerina's gender transition with a non-transgender lead. A scene depicting self harm was cited for irresponsibly depicting a false narrative of gender transition.
"For me, the process of 'Girl' was a process of learning, of going into dialogue with perspectives that I wasn't necessarily aware of," said Dhont. "It was a process of learning about myself and about others. I'm very thankful for that experience. It transformed the way I make films. Every film, I think, you transform. But it did teach me a lot about perspective and how that's incredible vital and important in making a movie."
The Grammys’ voting body is more diverse, with 66% new members. What does it mean for the awards?
For years, the Grammy Awards have been criticized over a lack of diversity — artists of color and women left out of top prizes; rap and contemporary R&B stars ignored — a reflection of the Recording Academy's electorate. An evolving voting body, 66% of whom have joined in the last five years, is working to remedy that.
At last year's awards, women dominated the major categories; every televised competitive Grammy went to at least one woman. It stems from a commitment the Recording Academy made five years ago: In 2019, the Academy announced it would add 2,500 women to its voting body by 2025. Under the Grammys' new membership model, the Recording Academy has surpassed that figure ahead of the deadline: More than 3,000 female voting members have been added, it announced Thursday.
"It's definitely something that we're all very proud of," Harvey Mason jr., academy president and CEO, told The Associated Press. "It tells me that we were severely underrepresented in that area."
Reform at the Record Academy dates back to the creation of a task force focused on inclusion and diversity after a previous CEO, Neil Portnow, made comments belittling women at the height of the #MeToo movement.
Since 2019, approximately 8,700 new members have been added to the voting body. In total, there are now more than 16,000 members and more than 13,000 of them are voting members, up from about 14,000 in 2023 (11,000 of which were voting members). In that time, the academy has increased its number of members who identify as people of color by 63%.
"It's not an all-new voting body," Mason assures. "We're very specific and intentional in who we asked to be a part of our academy by listening and learning from different genres and different groups that... Read More