Belgian filmmaker Lukas Dhont won the award for best first feature at Cannes with this empathetic, emotionally rich portrait of a 15-year-old trans girl who aspires to become a ballerina.

This achingly beautiful drama about a teenager who is transitioning gender while training to be a ballerina was one of Cannes 2018’s most talked about films, winning the Camera d’Or for first-time director Lukas Dhont and the Un Certain Regard acting award for its young star.

While Lara already identifies as a girl, her world is undergoing significant and much desired transformation. She has just moved with her father and kid brother to a new city where she has been provisionally accepted into a prestigious dance school and she will soon be old enough to start hormone replacement therapy. Held captive by her body, she tapes her genitals and hides the bloodied feet which have not grown up en pointe like the other girls. While her father offers her nothing but support, she is all teenage uncertainty and impatience and her interior world moves closer to self-destruction even as her outer beauty blooms. 

While the casting of Polster, who identifies cis gender, will be the subject of debate at a time when awareness of transgender actors is improving, there can be no argument that this is a deeply intuitive performance, rendering the truth of Lara's battle with indelible grace. — Clare Stewart

“Girl has the power to not just change lives but reinvigorate your belief in cinema.” — Jordan Ruimy, The Playlist