Voor de Meisjes (2025)

Voor de Meisjes (Our Girls, 2025) is a morally sardonic drama directed by Mike van Diem. It is a character- and dialogue- driven film, while simultaneously there is much happening in between the lines.

For years, two couples have shared the perfect holiday home in the Alps and enjoyed each other's company every summer. But when their teenage daughters are involved in a shocking accident, their long-standing friendship is put to a new, unthinkable test. As each couple works to uncover the truth and save their own daughter, long buried tensions and uncomfortable truths erupt, forcing them to abandon any pretence of decency and to question all of their certainties as spouses, parents and friends

Belgian composer Ruben De Gheselle managed to write a little over 20 minutes of original score. Through his collaboration with the director, he often crafted numerous variations on all cues before coming up with the final score. His music relates well to the overall dramatic scope regarding the plot, the characters, the mystery of what their spouses did and the hurt, but most prominent and effective in how it relates evidently strongly to the film's ethicalness. For this he uses a set of string, piano, a woodwind, minimal electronic support and a soprano voice, singing expressive and more abstract, short repeated phrases, crafting a very ominous, tense and yet humane, deeply resonating atmosphere.

The director felt that the character Elise, performed by Thekla Reuten, required a theme, which van Diem wrote himself for solo piano, and was used during principal photography. It's a wonderful theme in the traditions of an étude. As De Gheselle came aboard, he left the piano version as it was, but for Elise's Adagio made small changes through thinning out the chords and added a cello.

Voor de Meisjes is a memorable score by Ruben De Gheselle.


A quote from the composer:
''​The epilogue, strangely enough one of the longest pieces, actually came about more intuitively. The decision to work with soprano Anna Nuytten was made because singing played such an immense role due to the choice of “Silent Night” at the beginning. The lyrics also return in a variation. The short soprano sequences bring a great deal of depth to the film in a very short arc. Moreover, the human voice seemed very appropriate for this story.''




Tracklist
1. Elise’s Theme (2:02) Ruben de Gheselle & Mike Van Diem
2. Smoking Area (2:23)
3. The Ride (1:25)
4. Beginning of the End (1:19)
5. Cardiac Arrest (0:56)
6. Scene of the Crime (2:55)
7. Parental Signatures (1:45)
8. Epilogue (5:47)
9. Elise’s Adagio (1:52) Ruben de Gheselle & Mike Van Diem
10. Variation I (additional track) The Photo
11. Variation II (additional track) The Hospital

Total duration: 23:30



(22-10-2025)