Jean-Marie Degesves (born 1945) worked in the theater as an actor and producer, as assistant director for Belgian TV, and made an independent short film, Les Petites Vacances, before making his first feature, Du Bout Des Levres, the story of the sexual initiation of an adolescent boy by an older woman. The boy, Ferdinand, is a loner, a watcher, different from other kids although he feels close to them. Madame Boirin, lonesome, alienated, responds with ambivalence to Ferdinand's advances. As the two meet more frequently, this almost filial love develops into irresistible physical attraction. Out of understanding or out of loneliness, she gives in to his wishes... makes him her “little god"... and initiates him.