The Cinematheque

“The quintessential poetic social realists of the age … Their influence is felt everywhere.”

Nick James, Sight and Sound

In September 2020, The Cinematheque mounted its first retrospective dedicated to Belgian fraternal filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. Titled ​“A Film That Is Also a Handshake” after a maxim set down in Luc’s published diary, the series showcased six features from the distinguished, philosophically inclined social realists, but excluded (for pandemic-related reasons) two of their most exemplary works: 1999’s Palme d’Or winner Rosetta, one of the final masterpieces of the last century, and 2002’s The Son, one of the first masterpieces of the new century. We are delighted to present those films, newly restored, in a series-addendum program that also includes the brothers’ much-lauded latest, Tori and Lokita, a picture that hearkens back, in ethics and aesthetics, to those seminal earlier works.

“The greatest living champions of cinematic realism.”

Eric Kohn, IndieWire

“Justly celebrated as masters of social realism … Viewers can forget these films are actually written, designed, and directed.”

Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader

“The Dardennes are students of human cruelty and champions of the resistance to it.”

A.O. Scott, The New York Times