Lola and the Sea

Just as 18-year-old transgender Lola (Mya Bollaers, in her first role) learns she can finally have surgery, her mother, her only financial support, passes away. Abiding by her last wishes, Lola and her estranged father Philippe (Benoît Magimel) travel to the Belgian coast and learn to re-read their family history in light of the other’s experience, getting a chance to try and make peace with a traumatic past that they’ll finally be able to share.

Belgian director Laurent Micheli explores the anger and provokes an authentic energy, while revealing tough truths in quite exceptional ways. Micheli, served by a wonderful duo of actors, captures the complexity and delves into the conflicting relationship between a transgender daughter and her overwhelmed dad, who had always rejected her, unable to accept the loss of the son he once had.