‘Julie Keeps Quiet’ director Leonardo Van Dijl and tennis coach Patrick Mouratoglou on sports, abuse, and Belgium’s acclaimed Oscar entry for Best International Feature
“Julie Keeps Quiet” director Leonardo Van Dijl was joined by professional tennis coach Patrick Mouratoglou for a Q & A following a recent screening of the film in Los Angeles. They sat down with Variety‘s Jenelle Riley to discuss Belgium’s entry for Best International Feature at the 2025 Oscars. Watch the full video interview below.
Julie (Tessa Van den Broeck) is a star player at an elite tennis academy. When her coach falls under investigation and is suddenly suspended, all of the club’s players are encouraged to speak up. But Julie decides to keep quiet.
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One of the film’s executive producers is four-time Grand Slam tennis champion, Naomi Osaka. She was in attendance as well, introducing the film to a packed audience including Academy members, press, and other invited guests, at the Creative Artists Agency. “Julie Keeps Quiet” had its world premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival in the Critics’ Week section on May 18, 2024, where it won the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution and SACD Award.
When discussing the inspiration for his feature film debut, Van Dijl said, “There’s a quote from Toni Morrison where she said, ‘If you want to read the book but it hasn’t been written yet, then go write it.’ Before silence is broken, there will always be silence, and I thought that was interesting. I felt like it’s a good approach to bring a new angle to a narrative that is already happening.”
“We should all care for the well-being of Julie and her entire generation and how we can create a safe place for them,” the director continued. “We all should be part of that conversation and think in new ways to take care of each other because ultimately a safe world for Julie will be a safer world for all of us.”
Although Van Dijl isn’t an avid tennis player himself, he thought this story would lend itself well to the sports world. “It’s a metaphor for society,” he explained. “You can relate to it because many people play sports. But it was never the intention in that way to say, ‘Look at this world of sports, such a dirty world, it’s corrupted or something.’ That wasn’t the intention. It was more like if I do it in sports, maybe I can use that approach to be hands-on in that way. It’s a world that is always trying to improve, because if you improve the results, you will be a better athlete. So that’s why I wanted to do it in sports, not to attack them, but because I felt like it was a safe place to have this silence of Julie.”
Mouratoglou, who has coached tennis greats Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka, among others, was Van Dijl’s inspiration for the character who plays the “good coach” in the film. “I had absolutely no idea,” he admitted. “The movie is incredible because there is so much that we can imagine behind the silence. There is also so much that we can feel, that she’s trapped. I felt that she was trapped because she felt it was very complex, but she was going through this, but she couldn’t talk. She thinks she needs him to progress, so that’s why she’s trapped. And yeah, he’s very manipulative. He’s making it all about him. She’s probably sure that without him she has no chance, and tennis is her life.”
The coach says the worst thing a coach can do is making anything about themselves. It should always be about what’s best for the athlete. “It’s not about how I feel about her forehand, it’s about how she feels about it,” he explained. “It’s not about how I feel on the tennis court, it’s about how the other one feels. So it’s being able to put yourself in the shoes of the other one completely…It’s very much a psychological thing.”
Mouratoglou uses a “kind eye” approach to coaching, focusing on an athlete’s best qualities rather than their worst. “Whenever I ask a coach, and I often do, ‘Tell me about your player,’ the first thing I hear most of the time is, ‘His problem is…’ as a first sentence,” he stated. “So talking about kind eye, yes, there are always some things to solve. That’s our job. We are problem solvers. If the player is number 100 and not number one, it’s because there are a lot of things to solve. But they don’t even think about the positive things to say about the player, they immediately jump to the problems.”
Van Dijl wanted to lead his film by example, always creating safe spaces for all involved, particularly his young lead actress. One of those rules was that nobody would ever have to be alone. “I don’t want to be alone with [Tessa],” he described. “I will be the director and I want to always create the possibility for her to say no. And I will not travel alone with her for this film. It’s not because I’m not trustworthy, it’s because I am trustworthy. It’s not only protecting her, but it’s also protecting me in that way. I don’t have the sole responsibility for the well-being of Tessa because I share it with somebody else. You understand what I’m saying? We need to really invest in what is healthy coaching, because I was able to direct this fairly dramatic movie in a very un-dramatic way. Very hands-on and where all the children had the best summer camp, and they’re not deeply troubled walking out of it.”
“Julie Keeps Quiet” is expected to be released nationwide in the US in early 2025.
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