Saturday, Feb 29, 4:30 pm
The Dardenne Brothers won this year’s Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival for this brave new work, another intimate portrayal of a protagonist in crisis. The filmmakers’ radical empathy alights on a Muslim teenager in a small Belgian town who is being gradually radicalized into extremism despite the desperate protestations of his single mother, and who winds up hatching a murderous plot targeting his beloved teacher. Taking a serious view of a difficult issue, Young Ahmed reminds viewers why the Dardennes continue to be at the center of 21st-century cinema.