Coward

Coward (2026)

Surrounded by brutality but bound by tenderness, two World War I soldiers find a fragile sanctuary of love and art amid the shadows of the Belgian trenches.

Date of release
2026-10-21
TMDB
7.4 / 10 (7)
Runtime
2h 7m
Genres
Drama, Romance, War
Director
Lukas Dhont

Casting

Interesting facts

Coward is a 2026 war-drama film directed by Lukas Dhont, co-written with Angelo Tijssens. A co-production of Belgium, France, and the Netherlands, it stars Emmanuel Macchia and Valentin Campagne as Pierre and Francis, and follows a gay love story in the Belgian trench warfare front of World War I.

Production

The screenplay for Coward was developed over three years, with Dhont and co-writer Angelo Tijssens conducting historical research in archives including London's Imperial War Museums, along with sources in Belgium and France. The writers learned of male soldiers performing theater pieces on the front lines, cross-dressing, usually playing the roles of wives and mothers, discovering rare lasting romantic connections of closeted queer people.

Coward is co-produced by The Reunion, a Belgian production company founded in 2021 by Dhont and his brother Michiel Dhont, alongside Versus Production, Topkapi Films and producer Juliette Schrameck for Lumen. The project received multiple sources of public funding, including €500,000 from Eurimages and €200,000 from Screen Flanders. It was co-produced by France 2 Cinéma, Ciné+ OCS, VTM, RTBF, Proximus, BeTV and Orange.

Principal photography was scheduled to begin in September 2025, with filming taking place in Belgium and New York.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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