19/02/2026 - BERLINALE 2026: The Brussels-based filmmaker discusses her first fiction feature, shot across the seasons with a small crew in a mountain refuge

Brussels-based filmmaker Manon Coubia once again explores the boundary between documentary and fiction in her first feature, Forest High [+see also:
film review
interview: Manon Coubia
film profile], shot in lightweight conditions across the seasons with a small crew in a mountain refuge where three stories unfold, following three women - guardians of the place - confronted with a solitude they have chosen. The film has its world premiere at the 76th Berlinale, where it is selected in the Perspectives section.

Cineuropa: What are the origins of the project?
Manon Coubia: It’s a place I felt compelled to tell the story of. I wanted to film this refuge that is close to me, which I’ve known for ten years, and I also spent my childhood in that region. I looked after it myself at times during the summer season. I used to take notes while working there as a caretaker. Then I met the actresses through my other projects, and I thought, “I’d really like to take them up to the refuge.” The advantage of the lightweight production framework was that it lent itself to making a film over an extended period, outside the pressures of traditional production.

There is a tension between a very real place and three fictional characters, as though the location itself gives rise to the narrative.
First of all, there are the stories brought by the people who pass through the place. For the first two narratives at least, the refuge remained open to hikers and to chance encounters. Their stories would disrupt those of the caretakers. For each character, we had imagined a profile and outlined possibilities depending on the kinds of encounters that might arise. We tried to anticipate the emotional territory each character would explore. I knew I wanted a rain scene, a moment of concern about changing weather conditions. In the end, everything unfolded quite naturally, despite the improvisation at the heart of the project. It was a very small set - there were eight of us - so the actress playing the caretaker was the real caretaker, and the boundaries were very porous. The tourists very graciously agreed to step into our story; everyone said yes - it felt quite magical. After all, we were just like them: we slept in dormitories and shared the living spaces. The final story, however, is clearly scripted; we light it differently, shift the visual grammar, and introduce shot-reverse-shot patterns, while still carrying the documentary dimension of the first two.

How did you choose these three characters, who symbolise three movements of life?
There was a strong desire to explore three forms of solitude, at pivotal moments in life. To see how each of them negotiates that experience. It felt important - even if only hinted at - to suggest their social backgrounds, to understand how they fill their time and how they relate to others. In the end, we encounter a character who has chosen withdrawal, someone who had the means to change her life, whereas the first two are more seasonal workers. I wanted the way each of these caretakers inhabits her solitude to reflect her personality. One of the bold choices of the final story is that, for fifteen minutes, there is only silence; we simply observe someone inhabiting her solitude. There are not the same anxious gestures as those of the first two caretakers. While working at the refuge, I met many women who choose and fully embrace being alone, something that is often questioned. Often by other women, in fact. There is judgement, whereas a solitary man retreating to a refuge would rarely be judged in the same way.

These three women are alone, yet together with the house and the mountain.
There is a pull towards that liminal zone: the forest at the foot of the mountain. A place that is itself a refuge, holding the past within it; the first character’s childhood, disappearing species, and soldiers who hid there during the war. A forest that is both physical and symbolic. And then the mountain’s steep face - imposing, sometimes threatening. We placed the three characters within three very different relationships to the landscape. The first barely looks at it anymore; she was born there and has known it all her life. It also holds her captive. She has very little direct relationship with the landscape; she does not sit before nature, unlike the other two, whose relationship is more contemplative. As a result, the framing is different as well. In fact, there are very few wide views of the landscape in the film; the cliff appears mostly in fragments, and only at the end do we see it in its entirety.

(Translated from French)