Behind the front lines of World War I, two young men find an unexpected space for tenderness in Coward, the new film from Lukas Dhont.
The director of Close returns with a gay love story about soldiers, performance and the possibilities of connection in a world consumed by violence.
The official trailer released by MUBI offers a new look at the film ahead of its December 25 U.S. theatrical opening.
Love Behind the Lines
Emmanuel Macchia plays Pierre, a Belgian soldier newly arrived at the front and eager to prove himself.
He meets Francis, played by Valentin Campagne, whose plan to stage a theatre show creates a temporary escape for the men around him.
As the Calgary International Film Festival’s synopsis describes, the performances offer a way to step away from the brutality, even briefly.
For Pierre and Francis, that space also becomes the setting for a developing love.
The premise brings together two kinds of exposure: performing before others and allowing another person to know you intimately.
A Photograph That Opened Another View of War
Speaking in an interview published by the Cannes Film Festival, Dhont traced the film’s inspiration to a photograph he found in a Paris bookshop.
It showed men dancing onstage in skirts made from sandbags, wearing jewellery made from old ammunition.
Conversations with historians led him to explore how soldiers used performance and creativity while waiting to return to battle.
Those historical accounts informed the film’s world; Pierre and Francis’s romance is a fictional story.
The image offers a striking contrast: objects associated with destruction repurposed for expression and play.
Dhont also discussed questioning the way war stories connect bravery with a capacity for violence, making room instead for fear, emotion and intimacy.
Cannes Recognition and an Oscar Bid
The film premiered at Cannes in May, where Macchia and Campagne jointly received the Best Actor prize.
As Attitude reports, it has also been selected as Belgium’s submission for the 2027 Academy Awards.
That places Coward in consideration for Best International Feature Film; it does not mean the film has received an Oscar nomination.
For gay audiences, its immediate appeal is the relationship at its centre and the possibility of seeing tenderness given space within a war drama.
There is something moving about men finding the freedom to create and connect when so much around them is being destroyed.
Coward asks viewers to consider what courage might look like when love becomes part of the answer.
📷 MUBI
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