Competition Films at LIFF 2025: We Believe You – Review

‘We Believe You’ marks a powerful debut for Belgian filmmaker Arnaud Dufeys and French filmmaker Charlotte Devillers. This gripping courtroom drama unfolds over the course of a single day, following Alice, played with searing intensity by Myriem Akheddiou, as she stands before a judge to fight for sole custody of her children. Her battle is not just against her ex-husband, but against a judicial system that seems determined to doubt her.

The film opens on a striking close-up of Alice’s tear-streaked face as she waits with her two children for the tram to court. The tension is immediate and erupts into chaos when her son, Etienne, refuses to get on and collapses in a tantrum, forcing Alice to drag him to his feet before he runs away. The moment is raw and uncomfortable, revealing both Etienne’s behavioural struggles and Alice’s mounting desperation. From this first scene, Dufeys and Devillers immerse us in a world where love, fear, and anguish collide.

Apart from its brief closing scene, the film takes place entirely within the stark white walls of a family courtroom. This minimalist setting — bright, sterile, and suffocating — mirrors the scrutiny and emotional confinement Alice faces. We soon learn the stakes: she has accused her ex-husband, played by Laurent Capelluto, of sexually assaulting their son. What follows is a harrowing day of testimonies and silences as the family confronts one another before the law.

We believe you by Arnaud Dufeys, Charlotte Devilliers – The Party Film Sales. Image Credit: Leeds International Film Festival.

Inside the courtroom, the tension could be cut with a knife. Alice, her children, and their father all sit in the same room, waiting to speak. Etienne is visibly afraid of his father, while his sister, Lila, refuses to look at him at all. The children speak with the judge about their wishes never to see their father, a conversation that feels deliberately withheld. The film is less about what they say and more about Alice’s experience, her voice, and her relentless determination to protect her children from further harm.

Alice, meanwhile, must endure the cruelty of courtroom rhetoric. Her ex-husband’s lawyer paints her as an overbearing, unstable mother who isolates her children. A third-party lawyer insists that a father’s presence is essential, no matter the allegations. Throughout, Alice must sit silently as others twist her reality into something unrecognisable. When she finally takes the floor, the shame on the lawyers’ faces is palpable — a momentary crack in the court’s cold indifference.

What follows is the film’s crescendo: a fierce, heart-wrenching monologue in which Alice recounts her relationship, the emotional isolation she felt within her husband’s family, infidelity, and finally, the devastation following her son’s confession. She admits her shortcomings, her exhaustion, her fear, but her love for her children burns through every word. Akheddiou’s performance is remarkable, shifting between fragility and ferocity, embodying a mother who refuses to be silenced.

We believe you by Arnaud Dufeys, Charlotte Devilliers – The Party Film Sales. Image Credit: Leeds International Film Festival.

The camerawork amplifies this intensity. Dufeys and Devillers keep the lens close, focusing intently on the actors’ faces as they testify. During Alice’s monologue, the camera refuses to look away and captures every tear, every tremor, every breath. It’s a masterclass in restraint and empathy, a study in how pain and truth register in the smallest expressions.

We Believe You is an extraordinary exploration of the challenges women face when speaking out. The title echoes through every scene as a bitter irony: everyone says they believe the victims, but the courtroom tells a different story. By the end of this single day, justice remains unresolved — and perhaps that’s the point. The story compels viewers to ask what it truly means to be believed after all that Alice and her children endure.