JEUNES MÈRES

Belgium, France

Fiction

Jessica, Perla, Julie, Ariane and Naïma are housed in a shelter for young mothers. Five teenagers hoping for a better life for themselves and their babies.

Written & directed by: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne
Produced by: Delphine Tomson, Denis Freyd, Michiel Dhont, Lukas Dhont
Cinematography: Benoit Dervaux
Editing: Marie-Hélène Dozo
Production Design: Igor Gabriel
Costume Design: Dorothée Guiraud
Make-Up & Hair: Natali Tabareau-Vieuille, Pascal Joris
Sound: Jean-Pierre Duret, Valène Leroy, Thomas Gauder, Éric Grattepain
Casting: Kevin Dardenne
Cast: Babette Verbeek (Jessica), Elsa Houben (Julie), Janaina Halloy Fokan (Ariane), Lucie Laruelle (Perla), Samia Hilmi (Naïma), Jef Jacobs (Dylan), Gunter Duret (Robin), Christelle Cornil (Nathalie), India Hair (Morgane), Joely Mbundu (Angèle)
Statement of the directors:
22 December 2023
When we went to visit what is called a “maternal support home” near Liège, it was as part of research for the writing of a screenplay with one single character: a young woman whose one aspect of life was being a mother of a baby with whom she was trying to connect. What first attracted us when we discovered this maternal home – after spending a few hours there to learn about how it functioned, exchanged a few words with the young single mothers (most of them minors), the caseworkers and the psychologist – was the communal life of this place, the meals, the baths given to the babies, the discussions around themes related to motherhood, violence, addictions ... It was a short reportage made by a trainee on these moments of communal life that inspired us to come back to this place and stay longer this time in order to approach the personal lives of these young mothers. Because if there are many moments of communal life, there are also and above all the solitary lives of teenagers struggling with their anxieties, hopes and sometimes illusions about their new condition as mothers – most often single mothers – about the family from which they come, to which they will or will not return, about the father who is often absent or non-existent, about their future with the child or without the child who will be entrusted to a foster family, about their educational and professional future too and their ability to live independently. Following this stay in the maternal support home, we decided our film will have not just one lead character but four, and a fifth, with a shorter story.
Our concern in bringing five stories into one film was to avoid falling into construction effects and conceive individual stories with the sole purpose of a global story which, for example, would be the story of one place, in this case the maternal home. We constructed each story according to each teenage mother and her child, trying to be as close as possible to the driving force of each one, letting ourselves be guided by the internal necessity of each trajectory, inside and outside the maternal home, in order to make a film that, while being a group portrait, is first and foremost five portraits of teenage mothers, each living their life made up of social situations and personal emotional relationships. Bringing attention to the individuality of each character, of each young single mother of a very young child, doesn’t mean that nothing connects them. What connects them: early motherhood linked to social determining of poverty and certain emotional deficiencies that tend to be the repetition of the same behaviours from generation to generation, is what they try to free themselves from, and it is precisely in this attempt that they appear singular, alive, unique and that they cease in a way to be characters and become people.
5 April 2024
With our small video camera we looked for shots in the sets we anticipated. By constructing a long sequence shot in Ariane’s mother Nathalie’s apartment, we once again observed that the sequence shot is our alexandrine, the constraint to find our film, its rhythm.
12 April 2024
We are in the casting process, looking for the young women who will be Jessica, Perla, Julie, Ariane and Naïma. Among 300 candidates, we selected one hundred and fifty.
8 July 2024
What separates these young mothers from their own mothers? What separates them in the materiality of the shot? Of the frame? At some point? The whole sequence? In the rhythm of the sequence? What can also link them? To be found in the sets and also, probably, in the variations of the rhythm.
23 July 2024
In long dialogue scenes, try long silences. Silences to approach the interior of the characters.
28 July 2024
We have the intuition that the sequences in the maternal home have to be shot inside the maternal home that inspired us. Let’s not go anywhere else or build a set. Shoot in this house and add no other elements of décor and lighting.
6 August 2024
The rehearsals allow us to find shots and above all be surprised by the spontaneity of the acting of the five young women chosen during casting. It’s up to us, at the time of filming, to allow this spontaneity to exist. Let’s not freeze anything with our indications.
17 August 2024
How to film Jessica’s first meeting with her mother? Both of them together all the time? The two, then Jessica by herself, then slight movement towards the mother, and then again, the two?
26 August 2024
Shooting has begun. To be free and simple. Let the wind through. Easy to say, hard to do. Film the young women in a way that they are people who resist being shot. The babies should also appear as little people, not baby pictures.
9 October 2024
We have just finished shooting. There was beautiful energy on set. No doubt that the fact that we rehearsed a lot allowed us to film so quickly. Also, because we shot without cinema light.
8 January 2025
We are finishing the editing. We are happy to have made the film the way we did. It seems to us that these five young mothers led us to the most fundamental emotions.

Production:
Les Films Du Fleuve
https://lesfilmsdufleuve.be

World Sales:
Goodfellas
https://goodfellas.film/