Interview: Lukas Dhont – Coward (opens in new tab)

Following the Grand Prix–winning Close, Belgian filmmaker Lukas Dhont returned to the Cannes competition with a film that explores how war reshapes identity, intimacy, and the very idea of courage. In Coward, set during World War I, Dhont uses the backdrop of trench warfare not only to depict fear as a natural response to institutionalized slaughter, but also to examine repressed emotional and sexual intimacy among soldiers, where bonds formed under extreme conditions become both lifelines an...