Bruno is a montanaro. He’s born to thrive on the mountaintops, to be truly self-sufficient and to commence his adult working life just as puberty strikes. Pietro is closer to city folk. He’s a dreamer who can afford artistic aspirations and a series of false starts. Even as a bond forms between the two over long summers spent together in the Italian Alps from their pre-teens, Pietro denies his friend the opportunity to join him at the city schools and forge his own path. Because that’s not how Pietro sees Bruno. He can only be this: Pietro’s simple holiday friend from the mountainside.

That rift splinters the boys through their teen years and it isn’t until adulthood, when Pietro’s father Giovanni passes away and leaves a cabin in the mountain for them to rebuild, that they can nurture their friendship from scratch. Giovanni had fostered a closer relationship with Bruno because he admired his firmer grasp on his masculinity. These power structures between the childhood friends bend and break as they wrestle with their destinies, their fundamental differences and the ties that bind them.

Partners in life and partners in directing, Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch approach The Eight Mountains—Felix’s seventh feature film after Beautiful Boy and The Broken Circle Breakdown and Charlotte’s first time in the chair—with an organic patience, as if observing a tree grow. Filmed on location in the Italian Alps, it was no easy production—the original actor playing Giovanni exited the project after not being up for the challenge—and that exertion feeds into the film as much as the atmosphere of the mountain ranges.

Adapted from Paolo Cognetti’s award-winning 2016 novel, the strength of The Eight Mountains primarily derives from the richness of its cinematography by Ruben Impens (Raw, Titane) and the lived-in intimacy of the principal characters, played by Alessandro Borghi and Luca Marinelli. Brendan Habes notes in his Letterboxd review that “it’s affecting to be reminded that it’s okay for men to nourish each other without thinking this somehow emasculates them,” and Abby writes how she “spent the whole movie hoping it would never end. Beautiful.”

The Eight Mountains shared the Jury Prize with Jerzy Skolimowski’s Oscar-nominated EO at last year’s Cannes Film Festival and comes to US theaters nearly a year later. Its late 2022 run in European theaters qualified it for Letterboxd’s 50 highest-rated films of last year, as well as placement among the top international and women-directed films. 

What was the film that made you want to become a filmmaker?
Charlotte Vandermeersch: Lars von Trier’s Breaking the Waves. How the film draws you so close to Emily Watson’s Bess—is she crazy or is the right to love the way she does crazy?—only to turn your own ideas upside down by the end of the film, defending the power of imagination above all. Film can do that?!

What was your favorite movie when you were eleven—the age of Pietro and Bruno at the start of the film?
FvG: I’m not sure when I saw them exactly but at a fairly young age I saw Stand by Me and Once Upon a Time in America—two films that combine young boys, coming of age and adults looking back. The films always stuck with me and I’ve seen them both quite a number of times. I was fascinated to see people grow up, to be able to capture a life in the time frame of a film. I’m sure it made me wonder how my life would be thirty years from then. In any case, it for sure has formed my filmography, because this fascination has stayed—what defines you as a kid and what makes you become what you become during a life.

CV: I remember seeing Jurassic Park, the original one, on the big screen in 1994. What an adventure, how frightening, how exciting! I loved dinosaurs already, and seeing them come to life in this way was utterly thrilling. 

What’s a film that you have had a lifelong bond with? One you can go a long time without watching, and then return to as an old friend. 
CV: The Piano by Jane Campion opened up a world of intimacy and eroticism to me when I was thirteen. I remember watching it with my mother and her jumping on top of me to prevent me from watching when things got too tense. We both loved it. I don’t often watch films again, but rewatching this one is meaningful, as it helps me to understand my own relationship to desire better, my femininity and the play between men and women. 

FvG: The Godfather I and II were films with an aura of mystery that I knew well before I ever saw them. I knew the poster, the stories, the famous one-liners like “an offer you can’t refuse.” Maybe I saw part of one of them early in my life but didn’t get it, I was more interested in action movies at that time. To then later really see them and appreciate them, I guess when already in film school, only to rewatch them over the years while reading and learning more about films and film production processes in general and to always be fascinated by them. The time it takes, yet the tension they have. The sense of creative freedom for the filmmaker and everyone involved, yet also being very precise.

Which films about masculinity and male friendship resonate with you most?
FvG: Y Tu Mamá También, Husbands, Old Joy.

CV: The Deer Hunter is a film that touched me greatly with how a group of friends gets torn by war. The relationship between Robert De Niro’s character and that of Christopher Walken… the tragedy of losing your grip on the other. 

We don’t often get the opportunity to talk to director duos who are also partners in life. What were some of your memorable date movies?
CV: It’s funny how we get along really well when it comes to casting or directing a scene together and yet this is a pretty hard question to answer. Pablo Larraín is a favorite director we have in common! 

Music has always played an important part in your films and each track by Daniel Norgren in The Eight Mountains adds lush texture to the atmosphere. What are your favorite soundtracks, specifically ones that primarily utilize one artist’s work?
CV: I really love the haunting soundtrack of Under the Skin by Mica Levi. It gives the film such a strong identity as image and sound become one. Eddie Vedder’s songs for Into the Wild are very strong and personal.

FvG: Into the Wild’s OST works incredibly well, and certainly was an inspiration on different levels. One of my favorite soundtracks by one artist is Magnolia with Aimee Mann’s songs. 

The vistas of the film are stunning—I’ll avoid saying ‘nature’ like a city boy!—the mountains, the rivers, the meadows, all incredible. What are the most visually beautiful films to you? Were any reference points you used for The Eight Mountains?
FvG: Sean Penn’s Into the Wild and Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain, but although those films were references and inspirations, it was more about the feel than actually copying anything from them visually. Other films that stunned us and came up a lot during discussions were Paweł Pawlikowski’s Ida and Andrey Zvyagintsev’s The Return. 

CV: Embrace of the Serpent by Ciro Guerra, as well as Fitzcarraldo by Werner Herzog are impressive nature trips. I also recall seeing Monos, by Alejandro Landes, as we were preparing The Eight Mountains. I loved it. I am pretty crazy about the Amazon, I guess you can tell by this selection…

You are two Belgian filmmakers who made an Italian film and lots of our films listed as produced by Belgium are more closely associated with other countries. What are some of the most essential films by Belgian filmmakers about Belgian culture?
CV: I would say Felix’s films like The Misfortunates and Belgica are very much a portrait of Belgium culture. Also, Bullhead by Michaël R. Roskam, Calvaire by Fabrice Du Welz, and D’Ardennen by Robin Pront.

FvG: My all-time favorite Belgian film is C’est arrivé près de chez vous [Man Bites Dog], made on a shoestring budget. It’s raw and bleak, yet very funny. Is it about Belgian culture? Not sure, yet it couldn’t have been made somewhere else… there is something so Belgian in everything about that movie. Other memorable films to mention are Daens, Rosetta, and Toto le héros.

CV: A film that reminds me of springtime would be Lore. Summer: Spring Breakers, ironically enough, or Licorice Pizza. Autumn: Revolutionary Road. Winter: Let the Right One In.

Finally, our members are obsessed with your film’s beards. Which is the most tremendous beard in cinematic history? Thank you.
CV: I think we can all agree Gimli’s beard in The Lord of the Rings is pretty legendary. 

FvG: No comment…