The Dardenne Brothers won this year's Best Director award at Cannes for this brave portrait of a radicalised Muslim teen.

Ahmed (played by newcomer Idir Ben Addi) finds himself caught between his imam’s ideals of unity and life's temptations. As the film opens he has developed a dangerous connection with a militant imam (Othmane Moumen), who plants poisonous ideas in the boy’s head. At school, Ahmed refuses to shake the hand of his beloved teacher (Myriem Akheddiou) because she’s a woman, while, at home, he tells off his white mother (Claire Bodson), in Arabic, for drinking alcohol.

Taking a serious view of a difficult issue – the effect of fanaticism on the body and soul – the Dardennes here remind viewers why they continue to be at the centre of 21st-century cinema.

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