Hemel

Sacha Polak : 2012

Hemel changes her sexual partners at an even quicker pace than her father Gijs changes his girlfriends. Since the death of the mother, the father and daughter have had an unusually close, at times even overly intimate relationship which tolerates no real commitment in their respective affairs. When Gijs dumps his girlfriend Emma at a party, Hemel's "secret" triumph is written all over her face. She is thus all the more shaken when her father falls in love with Sophie for real, whom Hemel snidely refers to as "her new mother" and who is now to move in with them. Tinged with empathy and sadness, the film takes a painfully precise look at the life of a troubled young woman who uses her sexuality to provoke in a scathingly aggressive manner but ends up doing the most damage to herself. Sacha Polak's debut feature won the FIPRESCI Prize at Berlin International Film Festival 2012.