DIRECTOR/SCREENPLAY: Céline Sciamma
PRODUCER: Bénédicte Couvreur
PRODUCTION CO: Hold Up Films, Lilies Films
PHOTOGRAPHY: Crystel Fournier
EDITOR: Julien Lacheray
​​MUSIC: Para One
WITH: Karidja Touré (Marieme/Vic), Assa Sylla (Lady/Sophie), Lindsay Karamoh (Adiatou), Mariétou Touré (Fily), Idrissa Diabaté (Ismaël), Simina Soumare (Bébé), Cyril Mendy (Djibril), Djibril Gueye (Abou)

FESTIVALS: Cannes, Venice, Toronto

REVIEWS

“Bursting onto the screen in a blast of buzzing power pop, Girlhood from Céline Sciamma (Water Lilies, Tomboy) is marked from the outset by its energetic embrace of the complexity and contradictions of underprivileged, urban teenage life. An (American) football game is in progress, but the players beneath the pads are all female, mostly black, and speak a slangy colloquial French: they are, as the French title has it, a ‘Bande de filles’, a gang of girls from the same notorious Parisian suburbs that spawned La Haine.

Choosing to locate her story in these drab, socio-economically depressed surroundings and to tell it through the eyes of a young black girl is not only a departure for Sciamma, whose previously equally well-observed coming-of-age tales have played out in mostly white middle class settings, but a risk, and yet it pays off in absolutely triumphant fashion. Girlhood is a fascinatingly layered, textured film that manages to be both a lament for sweetness lost and a celebration of wisdom and identity gained, often at the very same moment.”

— Jessica Kiang, The Playlist

FILM SOCIETY SCREENINGS

Dunedin   
Wednesday, 22 February, 7.30pm

Palmerston North  
Wednesday, 01 March, 6.00pm

Auckland   
Monday, 13 March, 6.15pm

Wellington     
Monday, 20 March, 6.15pm

Hamilton  
Monday, 27 March, 6.30pm

Nelson     
Tuesday, 04 April, 6.00pm

New Plymouth     
Wednesday, 24 May, 6.00pm

​Bigger Picture Ōamaru    
Thursday, 13 July, 7.00pm

Carterton
Friday, 28 July, 7.00pm

Canterbury   
Monday, 04 September, 7.00pm​

Tauranga   
Tuesday, 26 September, 6.00pm​​

Timaru
​Tuesday, 10 October, 6.00pm

Whanganui   
Monday, 13 November, 7.00pm

Celebrate CONTEMPORARY CINEMA >>