“There was a time when I was stupid - not in my head, but in my choices.” This observation by Jean, a young teenager from Antwerp, speaks volumes about his self-awareness, which shines through the portrait of him drawn by young Flemish filmmaker Jolke Van Aerde in her eponymous documentary, Jean. The film was selected for the competition and had its world premiere at the 53rd Film Fest Gent – a rare achievement for a debut feature, particularly a documentary. It also received a Special Mention from the official jury, which appreciated the “intuitive” and “non-linear” way in which the portrait unfolds. Filmed between the ages of seven and 15, the boy is followed through his relationship with the educational establishment, which seems to constrain rather than empower him.

Despite his young age, Jean has attended countless schools. At around 12, speaking to the director’s camera, he can already count six of them: first a Steiner school, then a boarding school and a special educational institution for children with additional needs, where we find him again a few years later. But this institution provides vocational training that does not match Jean’s ambitions, which remain remarkably clear despite his unsettled educational journey. Jean knows what he wants – “to do a job he loves” – and, above all, what he does not want: “a job that would make him depressed”. Jean can no longer bear the box into which he has been placed and is determined to do everything he can to escape it. He is aware of his past failures and equally aware that the road ahead will be difficult, demanding hard work, dedication and sacrifice. The few months that Jean hopes stand between him and a return to a more conventional educational path form the backbone of the narrative, even as the movie occasionally ventures down the byways of his past: back to his aforementioned 12th year, but also to an earlier, wordless age, when we observe a little boy – the Jean from before all the bad choices, we imagine.

The strength of this portrait, drawn over a period that is not only long, but also loosely structured, jumping from one point in time to another, lies in the closeness the filmmaker establishes with her subject. She films him at close quarters, only turning away to give the story a moment to breathe – a shot of a tree bending in the wind, or a focus on one of Jean’s classmates – before invariably returning to him. She gives ample space to his words, which are surprisingly lucid and determined, but also to his silences and shared moments of introspection, creating the impression that we can hear Jean just as clearly when he speaks aloud as when he speaks inside his head. Focused on his uneven educational journey, the narrative subtly branches off in another direction when Jean’s intriguing relationship with faith emerges. Although he was not raised in a religious environment, he turns to religion in search of acceptance and protection, culminating in a final movement that takes us away from the claustrophobic reality of his schooling in Antwerp and opens onto the fresh sea air of a Greek island.

Jean was produced by Accattone Films, in co-production with Canvas. The film will be released in Belgium on 3 February 2027 by Avila.