Teen Horses
2019 · 21m · France
Directed by Valérie Leroy
Genres: coming-of-age, drama, LGBTQ+
Tones: melancholic, tender
Fourteen-year-old Tania, freshly transplanted from Finland to France after her parents' separation, struggles to fit in at her new collège — clinging to her old team's obscure passion, hobby horsing, as she searches for a tribe that will accept her.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Hobby horsing is such a deliberately unglamorous choice that it almost feels like Leroy's daring you to find it beautiful — and she pulls it off, which means the premise isn't the subversion, the sincerity is.
Leroy's restraint in treating hobby horsing with the same formal gravity as traditional coming-of-age imagery positions this squarely in a lineage of films that refuse condescension toward their subjects' inner lives.
The decision to shoot the competitive hobby horsing sequences with the same cinematic weight as Tania's intimate moments — refusing to wink at the camera — is what transforms a fish-out-of-water concept into something genuinely moving about adolescent belonging.
Reviews
The film addresses self-acceptance and the need to free oneself from others' judgment in order to grow.
Festivals
- Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival 2020
- Off-Courts Trouville 2020, Critics' Prize
- Chéries-Chéris 2020