The Life of Esteban (2018)

Directed by: Ines Eshun | 15 minutes | short film, drama | Actors: Noah Mavuela, Mathis Mavuela, Joshua Tassin, Zion Kiala, Tine Cartuyvels, Goua Grovogui

Life doesn’t always start at birth. Maybe it starts earlier, later, or maybe when you don’t expect it. Esteban has a mother, but no father. While swimming, he tries to get a grip on a life full of question marks.

‘The life of Esteban’ is a very ambitious short film, in which a search for identity is beautifully captured. We follow lead character Esteban through a number of different periods, played by different actors. Quite big for a short film, you might think, but director Inès Eshun manages to succeed in this challenge. The scenes and accompanying characters gradually flow into each other and effortlessly take you into this coming-of-age story. However, the voice-over does not add much here and there, because the images already speak for themselves.

With this graduation project, Eshun shows the potential of young Belgian filmmakers. ‘The life of Esteban’ has therefore been screened at various international film festivals and has won the Student Visionary Award in New York. All in all it is a very enjoyable and strongly designed short film. Perhaps Eshun will dare to go a step further in her next (long) film and let it rub a little more here and there, as it would do in real life.