Interview: Leonardo Van Dijl On Julie Keeps Quiet

Julie Keeps Quiet is a psychological Dutch film written and directed by Leonardo Van Dijl. The film had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in 2024, where it went on to win the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution and SACD Award. Later in the year, the film was chosen as the Belgian entry for Best International Feature Film for the Academy Awards and received widespread acclaim from critics and the general public.

As the name suggests, Julie tells the story of Julie, a tennis talent and star player at a local elite tennis academy, as she navigates a set of complex emotions. At the beginning of the film, her coach is suspended and falls under investigation after one of the athletes at the academy commits suicide. All of the players are encouraged to speak up in the ongoing case, but the pressure is especially on Julie, who was especially close with her coach.

We sat down with Leonardo Van Dijl, the director of Julie Keeps Quiet, to talk about his approach to filmmaking, why he chose to focus his story on tennis, and how he created a safe space on set for the actors involved, especially tennis player Tessa Van den Broeck who acts for the first time in the film as Julie.

How did you first get the idea for Julie Keeps Quiet, and what started this journey for you?

Leonardo Van Dijl: When I started five years ago, I think there were a lot of talks and opinions around the subject, but I also felt like the conversation seemed empty. I also wanted to project the narrative four years in the future to see how this could benefit a new generation and what we would have accomplished as a society.

I think that is ultimately why we exist: to create a better world for people. These days, I am not so sure anymore if that is the aim anymore but I wanted to explore the life of this 15-year-old girl and see how to make this story work. I wanted to show that we could be better without being moralising. It was almost like an imaginary test case, and to give Julie some kindness and elegance, because that is what she deserves. The movie is about injustice, so the only thing I can do is tell it with as much sincerity as I can and tell this story. I wanted to give it justice in some way by telling this story.

It is really interesting that the film is not really a thriller because we are not trying to find out what happened, because the title already suggests that this is about Julie keeping quiet. Why did you choose that? And why is it so important that Julie keeps quiet?

I think that if you put somebody on the spot and everybody is watching, like the protagonist, people will learn more about her if she keeps quiet than if she starts talking. Because that’s more impactful in a way. I wanted to shape Julie almost like a Greek heroine, like Antigone, for example, who dared to say no to her society and do what is right by burying her brother. She is daring to say no to the political system in that way and argues that every human has the right to be buried in the tragedy, so she is fighting for humankind, and it is something we are still talking about today.

Julie is similar because in a world where everybody is pressuring her to speak up, she dares to say no in that way. So she argues for some common sense in a society where there is so much pressure on disclosure. We really advocate that it is only through people breaking the silence that we can fight injustice. I feel like we also should learn how to listen to silence and learn how to detect that and allow people to remain silent. In a way, if we want Julie to speak out and do the work, then the least we can do is do our part of the job. I did a lot of research about safeguarding young athletes and really think about how we can create safe environments for boys and girls like Julie to be in so they don’t have to suffer what she has to go through.

For example, I asked myself how we can work around that if there are incidents, and how we can create a good conversation without excluding the people who need to be involved. There was a lot to think about for me. As a community, the safer Julie is, the better we will be as a community.

tennis player on court in Julie Keeps Quiet

Was that something that you took with you when you worked on set? Because I know the actress playing Julie is very young, and this was her first film as well. Was the safety aspect something that you also wanted to implement on set?

Leonardo Van Dijl: Absolutely. It was necessarily about talking with Tessa about how to create a safe set, which is my responsibility as one of the grown-ups. When it comes to Tessa and her peers, they have the right to be innocent and just enjoy working on set, and learn, grow, or make mistakes in a safe system. It was great because I did all the research about safeguarding, so I could really implement and apply the procedures.

For example, I would never be alone with Tessa in a room. A safe dialogue is about creating transparency and creating a conversation with somebody else there, and because I am the director, I would hold the power in this dynamic. There may be times when she might not feel free to ask me questions or say something to me. No matter how many times you tell someone that they can tell you anything, that might still not be the case. So it was important to me that somebody else was there as well, so Tessa could ask someone else if she did not feel like coming to me, which creates a conversation.

It was not just me bearing this responsibility in the production team. For example, I said to the parents that I saw a happy kid walk on set and in that audition, and I want to have a happy kid walk in every day on that set, so they needed to be part of that. It is really about creating a community that is bigger than this film. I made sure that her family was present in that way, and she was allowed to bring friends on set sometimes. And her friends were in the movie as well, in the background of some scenes, so there was also some level of dialogue happening.

Also, you don’t always know the outcome of a movie, so it was important to me that this was a shared adventure. It is a big intervention to take a girl like that who comes from the tennis world, put her on a set and then ship her off to Cannes. But I did not know what was going to happen, as I said, so I focused on wanting her to be safe. I don’t believe that the rules are only there to protect the children or vulnerable people. For example, the rules are there to protect the athlete, but also the coach and similarly the actor, but also the director. It is a holistic system, and it also made me feel free to do my job because I knew we had the right framework.

READ OUR REVIEW OF JULIE KEEPS QUIET HERE

Speaking of Tessa, she’s incredible, first of all. I know that she’s a tennis player in real life: was that something you were looking for in auditions?

Leonardo Van Dijl: It was never a question of not working with non-tennis players. In the film, everyone is questioning if she is sincere and speaking the truth, so I needed to have somebody who could play tennis and was as believable as possible in that way. If I had someone who could not even hit a ball, how could we believe her silence at all?

It is impossible to take someone who knows how to act and teach them tennis in just six months. So I decided I needed to find a tennis player. I was really lucky to find Tessa because she was the perfect tennis player, but also the perfect actress. Her performance is absolutely stunning, and I feel like it made the story and elevated it to a better movie than what I ever dreamed of making, which is all credit to her. I do think that it is because we created the set in such a safe way. Even if she was the protagonist, she did not have the responsibility to carry that movie, so she could just be in it.

Like I said to Tessa from the very beginning, acting is about studying your lines and following directions. It is very technical because we rehearse a lot so you will feel confident and secure in your tennis because you will be prepped for the game. Meanwhile, there will be time to learn, there are no mistakes on the way, and I told her she’d do a great job because she is a great actress, otherwise, I would not have chosen her. It is about creating healthy confidence without putting more pressure on her. It was also important that we were not going into the silence with Julie. Tessa is a teenager; she knows what it is to keep quiet, but it is very important to separate Tessa from her character because I did not want the silence to haunt her afterwards. We cannot have the lines between them blurred or something, so it was necessary to know when she was in character or when she was not in character, so there needed to be this separation between reality and the fictional world.

How did you know that Tessa was the right choice for Julie?

Leonardo Van Dijl: She is actually almost the opposite of Julie. She is very bubbly, chatty, and very opinionated, in a very good way. She is a very smart girl. It worked well because I did want to have someone I could communicate this, have this consent that we are not going into the silence. She understood the character and the importance of Julie’s silence in this movie. In that sense, we spoke the same language. I actually did not have a set idea of what Julie would look like because this could happen to any girl. People always ask me what kind of girl I was looking for, but this could really happen to anyone, to all boys and girls in all shapes and personalities; you cannot define it. But you know, she’s almost the opposite of Julie in that way. Yeah, she’s very bubbly. I was aware that I would know when I know, and that happened with Tessa; she just walked in and did an amazing audition. It was only day two, and we knew right away. It was such a joy because this was exactly like I had imagined the whole movie to be: it was so much fun and easy, and yes, it helps when you have a good actress.

Leonardo Van Dijl interview for Julie Keeps Quiet

Of course, there is so much sport in this film. How did you approach portraying tennis as a sport?

Leonardo Van Dijl: I focused more on the practice rather than the competition. If I want to see a good game, I will just watch Wimbledon, and I feel like I did not have much to contribute in that. But when it comes to practice, there are certain exercises and elements that may be unseen. It is more choreography in that way because it is very repetitive. I liked to work with it as a dance, that is how I envisioned it. Sometimes I say that it is almost like a meditation. When you see Julie at the beginning of the movie, she is very de-centred and not aligned with herself. Her mind and her soul were separated. But every time she plays tennis, these things come together; it is almost like she is in a transcendental state. She is lucky to have sport in that way because otherwise she would be more scattered. We wanted to show that. It is true as well with tennis that it is addictive for people to play because when you are in your zone and playing with the ball, you are with yourself. You are not playing against an adversary or something; it is a very interesting state of being, and I wanted to give that enlightenment to a girl who starts this journey completely in the dark.

There is a lot of abuse in sports even today, we hear about it a lot, unfortunately. Were you always going to portray this story through tennis?

Leonardo Van Dijl: This kind of story takes place anywhere, so I do not want to reduce this to a conversation about just sports or only tennis. I also play tennis myself, and I felt like it would be honest to tell this story within my own community. Then I would have a responsibility to that community, which helped me make this movie as sincere as possible. If I had been there to exploit the subjects or the sports, then I wouldn’t have been able to return to the tennis court after the movie finished. I am very happy I chose tennis because the community was so ive and never tried to silence me. They were really encouraging of the whole safeguarding aspect around the subject. We not only emphasised the impact of a toxic relationship with a coach but also the impact of healthy coaching. The tennis community did that from really early on in the process which was fantastic. I spoke to Tessa’s coach and he encouraged her to do the audition. And it ended with Naomi Osaka coming on board as an executive.

I did want to ask you about your relationship with the executive producer and your producers, because you have some incredible ones, including obviously the Dardanne brothers. How was that working relationship for you?

Leonardo Van Dijl: Well, of course, they are co-producers. So they came in when the story already had a bit of shape. I am Belgian and they are almost my fathers in the world of cinema. One of my best friends introduced us, and he spoke really highly about my movie, so they asked if they could read it. That was already amazing for me, and then I had the opportunity to sit down Luc Dardenne, and he was so careful to read the script. He made notes and was so kind, we had a really cool workshop. It is not always easy to have another director read your script, so for him to really sit with the concept of the movie and the character in that way and share his insights was very generous. It was not toxic coaching, it was more like encouraging me to tell my story in that way. I am very grateful because I just saw Luc rather than the Dardennes brothers when he gave me . We spoke about Julie and how to give justice to her.

I know you mentioned going to Cannes, and I wanted to ask you what that experience was like, especially with the audience, as that was the first time you presented the film to the public.

Leonardo Van Dijl: In a way, it’s just like one big blur, because you go in a huge kind of survival mode or something, because you don’t know what to expect. I had never done this before. I feel very comfortable sitting here and talking about Julie person to person, but it is different with the audience, as I do not necessarily feel comfortable. I want the audience to see this movie and talk about it, but for me as director, I’m more comfortable behind the camera. I also didn’t read reviews because I did not want to expose myself to external and destabilise myself in that way. I needed to keep my eyes focused on really bringing this message that this story comes out into the world. But after the premiere, I did see these twinkles in people’s eyes, especially from sales or producers, where I realised people were liking this.

I also really liked the music and the way you use music compared to the silence, especially the sound of tennis. Can you speak a little bit about how you included the music in the film?

Leonardo Van Dijl: Like I said, I am inspired by Antigone, so I wanted the soundtrack to be almost like the choir. And so every chapter, they intervene and almost give force to that silence and the repression that is within Julie. Every time it becomes bigger and more layered in that way. It gives more complexity to the story, and by the end of the movie, you can hear the real song. In a way, that is Julie’s silence, and hopefully it will haunt the audience like a siren.