A first trailer has been unveiled for feature directing debutant Shuchi Talati‘s “Girls Will Be Girls,” world premiering at Sundance’s world cinema dramatic competition.
The film is set in an elite boarding school in a small Himalayan hill town in northern India and follows the story of Mira, a 16-year-old girl whose sexy, rebellious awakening is hijacked by her mother who never got to come-of-age. Malayalam cinema actor Kani Kusruti (“Pada”) is playing one of the leads. The film marks the debut of emerging actors Preeti Panigrahi and Kesav Binoy Kiron who also have lead roles.
“Girls Will Be Girls” is an India-France-Norway coproduction. Producers include India’s Pushing Buttons Studios and Crawling Angel Films and France’s Dolce Vita Films (2019 Venice and Cairo winner “A Son”). Pushing Buttons is an outfit founded by Indian actors Ali Fazal (“Death on the Nile”) and Richa Chadha (“Gangs of Wasseypur”). Sanjay Gulati’s Crawling Angel has credits including 2023 Karlovy Vary selection “Guras.” Dolce Vita is headed by Claire Chassagne and Marc Irmer.
The film is backed by equity partners Cinema Inutile, Blink Digital and Arte Cofinova and supported by the CNC (Aide aux Cinémas du Monde) and the Sørfond through Norwegian co-producing partner Hummelfilm and ARRI.
The project was part of the Berlinale Talents Project Market in 2022, where it won two awards – the VFF Talent Highlight Award with prize money of €10,000 ($10,765) and the €6,000 ARTEKino International Award, presented by ARTE to honor an artistically outstanding project from the Berlinale Coproduction Market.
Luxbox is handling international sales.
Talati told Variety: “I am so thrilled. Many, many of my favorite films have come out of Sundance, so this selection is a huge honor for my first feature. It takes forever for a film to get made, and then you desperately hope it will find a good home. I couldn’t have imagined a better home than Sundance. I hope this also means the film will now reach more people because it’s for everyone. I mean, who hasn’t struggled with loving and hating someone at the same time?”
Watch the trailer here: