
Coward
About the event
Coward, the latest feature film from Belgian director Lukas Dhondt, received a standing ovation lasting no less than 13 minutes in Cannes. Lead actors Emmanuel Macchia and Valentin Campagne were both awarded Best Actor for Dhont’s drama about a queer love between two young soldiers during WWI. Flanders, 1916. The trenches of World War I: hundreds of thousands of young men are losing their lives in a horrific war of attrition being fought for tiny territorial gains, achieved by sending mass waves of infantry into a hail of machine-gun fire.
It is against this background that Pierre (Emmanuel Macchia) and Francis (Valentin Campagne) meet. Pierre is a taciturn farmer’s son who wants to prove himself in war, while the flamboyant, playful Francis is active in an entertainment unit meant…




