Girls Will Be Girls movie storyline. In a strict boarding school nestled in the Himalayas, 16-year-old Mira discovers desire and romance. But her sexual, rebellious awakening is disrupted by her mother who never got to come of age herself.
With precision and sensitivity, first-time feature director Shuchi Talati invites us into the lives of characters she intimately understands and deciphers, allowing us to experience adolescent sexual discovery with all its conflicting emotions. Preeti Panigrahi embodies Mira with nuanced sincerity, her hesitation transforming into confidence when she’s swept up by Kesav Binoy Kiron’s charismatic, wry Sri.
Kani Kusruti, meanwhile, gives a brilliant performance as Mira’s cunning mother, Anila, setting up the perfect game of mother-daughter chess as these women descend into a struggle that threatens their affection for each other. Beautifully exploring the origins of empowerment and the limits of trust, Girls Will Be Girls celebrates the freedom of self-acceptance and the solace of female agency, sensuality, and physicality.
Girls Will Be Girls is a 2024 Indo-French coming-of-age drama film written and directed by Shuchi Talati. It stars Preeti Panigrahi, Kani Kusruti, and Kesav Binoy Kiron. The film is director Talati’s first feature, and the debut of Panigrahi and Kiron. The film is set in a boarding school in the Himalayan foothills, and centers around the teenage protagonist Mira’s romance with a charming new student, her subsequent sexual-awakening, and at times strained relationship to her protective mother.
About the Filmaker: Shuchi Talati
Shuchi Talati is a filmmaker from India whose work challenges dominant narratives around gender, sexuality, and South Asian identity. Girls Will Be Girls, a sexual awakening film set in a Himalayan boarding school, is her first feature. Her short film A Period Piece, about an afternoon of period sex, played at the SXSW Film Festival. Talati lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
Girls Will Be Girls (2024)
Directed by: Shuchi Talati
Starring: Preeti Panigrahi, Kani Kusruti, Kesav Binoy Kiron, Kajol Chugh, Nandini Verma, Devika Shahani, Akash Pramanik, Aman Desai, Sumit Sharma, Jitin Gulati, Pratap Singh, Pradeep Kapoor
Screenplay by: Shuchi Talati
Production Design by: Avyakta Kapur
Cinematography by: Jih-E Peng
Film Editing by: Amrita David
Costume Design by: Shaahid Amir
Set Decoration by: Ananya Bhide
Art Direction by: Arzoo Ali
Music by: Sneha Khanwalkar, Pierre Oberkampf
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Juno Films (United States)(theatrical)
Release Date: January 20, 2024
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