The Lost Boys

19/02/2023 - BERLINALE 2023: Zeno Graton makes the leap to feature films with an agonising elopement, a story about emancipation and imprisoned desire.

Zeno Graton makes the audacious and inspired decision to set a passionate love story in a potentially hostile location, but where the biggest hurdles to this passion are unexpectedly complex. They’re magnified by Olivier Boonjing’s photography, which culminates in incredibly beautiful scenes where the young people from the facility discover the art of the camera obscura. The freedom which awaits Joe is a paradox, as noted by his sentencing judge, because it also involves giving something up. Placed within a juvenile detention centre, he gets through day by day, as if lost in a sea of uniforms, by turns anaesthetised by the repetition of daily chores and exalted by his thirst for freedom. [The Lost Boy](https://cineuropa.org/film/438186/), as he wonders about the fate of these fish who seemed to be a family, but whose hearts has stopped beating. This is the question posed by Zeno Graton’s debut feature film which was presented in a world premiere in the 73rd [Berlinale](https://www.berlinale.de/en)’s Generation 14plus line-up.