Isabelle Tollenaere, Belgian Documentary Maker, Brings Fiction Debut “Paris Paris” to Karlovy Vary’s Proxima Competition

Belgian documentary maker Isabelle Tollenaere is taking a fiction feature debut to this year’s Karlovy Vary Film Festival, where her movie “Paris Paris” will screen in the festival’s Proxima competition, according to an interview published Tuesday by The Hollywood Reporter.

Tollenaere, who has been known for documentaries, said she changed her approach for the new film, moving toward a work she describes as a cinematic allegory rather than a straightforward account. In the interview, she frames the project as an opportunity to explore ideas that documentaries often touch but do not always hold at the same distance, using fiction’s flexibility to shape how audiences experience belonging and loss.

The film centers on themes Tollenaere has connected to displacement and to a longer meditation on home, including how memory shapes what people call a place to return to. The interview describes the movie’s focus as both political and quiet in its presentation, positioning the allegory as a way to consider social and personal upheaval without using a confrontational style.

In The Hollywood Reporter’s account of Tollenaere’s comments, she characterizes the political dimension of “Paris Paris” as direct in subject matter while not “in your face,” indicating that the film’s argument is carried through tone, structure, and image rather than through an overt didactic approach. The emphasis is placed on how the experience of displacement can be made legible through storytelling choices typical of fiction.

Tollenaere’s move from documentary practice to a fictional feature has drawn attention in part because the Proxima competition itself is intended to spotlight contemporary emerging filmmakers and newer works, providing a platform where style and form are key parts of the evaluation. Her selection places “Paris Paris” alongside other films vying for recognition at the festival, with audiences and critics watching for how documentary sensibilities translate into fictional construction.

With the premiere now set for Karlovy Vary’s Proxima slate, the next phase for the film is festival visibility, including press coverage and industry attention that often follows competitive screenings. For Tollenaere, the timing also marks a milestone in expanding her portfolio from nonfiction to fiction feature storytelling, while keeping the same broad preoccupations with where people land in life and what “home” means when movement and disruption reshape daily reality.