Porselein

The lives of Anna, Paul and their young son Thomas look perfect – from the outside. Paul has a well-paid, demanding career, Anna has a studio at home where she works with porcelain and Thomas is a angelic child. They have money, friends and each other. But when Thomas bites one of his friends at school, the first cracks appear in the glossy exterior of this 'perfect' life. It marks the start of a long, frustrating search for the cause of their son's aggression: a process that mercilessly exposes the frailties they each carefully hide and prompts the parents to take desperate measures – even calling in the help of an almost complete stranger. Jenneke Boeijink's fiction feature debut builds the tension painstakingly from the start; from the very first moment the camera zooms in from high above Rotterdam's multi-storey housing to this family's house. The psychological drama carried by actress Laura de Boer, Flemish actor Tom Vermeir and young Neathan van der Gronden demonstrates just how fragile happiness can be. (International Film Festival Rotterdam)