09/02/2026 - When stress kills and parenthood requires physical sacrifice, Dan Geesin turns common figures of speech into a disquieting body-horror parable and an offbeat psychological drama

Feeling like we’re on the verge of exploding from stress or that our head is about to burst from emotional pressure are common figures of speech. In A Messy Tribute to Motherly Love [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which world-premiered in the Tiger Competition of this year’s IFFR, they become literal narrative devices, forming the conceptual bedrock of a film which pushes body horror into psychological drama and speculative absurdism. Set in a world where stress can kill and reproduction requires bodily sacrifice, Dan Geesin’s feature unfolds as a surprisingly controlled and often disarming meditation on care, desire and the dangerous pursuit of engineered happiness.

The premise is stark and immediately unsettling. A piano tuner living a seemingly quiet rural life, Samuel (played by Juda Goslinga) longs for a family in a society where children are “cooked up” from the finest parts of their parents’ bodies. The emotional weight of Samuel’s desire to have a child gradually builds, until his wife (Astrid van Eck) literally explodes from stress — an event which would function as a dramatic endpoint in most films. Here, it is merely the beginning. Cut adrift, Samuel is gradually absorbed into a strange, intimate orbit formed by his mother (Frieda Pittoors) and an old friend called Edwin (Guido Pollemans), with the promise of renewal coming in the form of a mysterious fertility jam which claims to offer a fresh start.

Geesin constructs a world that’s both radically surreal and uncannily familiar. The film’s most striking achievement lies in how convincingly its performers inhabit a reality where stress-induced death and bodily sacrifice are treated as facts of life rather than spectacles. Acting performances are finely calibrated across the board: understated, almost casual, they restore a sense of normality to situations that would otherwise tip into grotesque excess. This tonal balance is crucial, allowing the film’s more extreme ideas to resonate without collapsing into parody or shock-for-shock’s-sake provocation.

Formally speaking, A Messy Tribute to Motherly Love boasts a more original premise than many recently celebrated genre hybrids (The Substance [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Coralie Fargeat
film profile] among them). While it draws loosely on the lineage of body horror and speculative cinema, it avoids fetishising transformation or violence. Instead, it uses corporeal instability as a metaphorical extension of emotional and relational breakdowns, folding science fiction and horror elements into a compelling psychological drama.

That said, the film’s world-building occasionally feels more suggestive than fully articulated. We catch glimpses of “explosion cabins” designed to allow citizens to die without disturbing others, and specialised waste systems for bodily remains, but little else is developed beyond these striking details. Daily life otherwise appears curiously close to our own, albeit more rural and sedate. In a society where stress is lethal, one might expect stricter behavioural codes, heightened emotional regulation, or the absence of activities which generate intense physical or mental strain — war, competitive sport, even certain intellectual disciplines. The film hints at these implications without fully exploring them, leaving some conceptual avenues intriguingly but frustratingly underdeveloped. In this sense, greater playfulness and inventiveness would have significantly raised the bar.

Nevertheless, the narrative is held together with confidence. Its linear structure and sustained rhythm make it easy to follow, even as the story drifts further into the irrational. In this way, Geesin quietly redefines familiar concepts — love, parenthood, sharing — and reframes them through ethics which feel both alien and disturbingly recognisable. The score supports this evolution, alternating between simple piano motifs and more energetic, guitar-driven passages which underline tonal shifts without overwhelming the images.

Ultimately, A Messy Tribute to Motherly Love emerges as a bold and surprising work: audacious in concept, disciplined in execution, and emotionally stranger than its premise initially suggests. It’s a film that fully earns its place in the Tiger Competition, offering a macabre yet oddly tender vision of care pushed beyond its limits and of happiness pursued at a potentially fatal cost.

A Messy Tribute to Motherly Love was produced by Dutch firms One Day Film and Rots Filmwerk, in co-production with Germany’s Leitwolf and Belgium’s Quetzalcoatl. British outfit Reason8 is handling world sales.