Celine Sciamma's GIRLHOOD at the IU Cinema this week, May 28-30

Girlhood is a mesmerizing exercise in the enlightenment that can happen when a filmmaker shifts the male cinematic gaze ever so slightly and uncovers what looks like a whole new world.”–Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post

Director Celine Sciamma calls Girlhood (original title: Bande de Filles) the conclusion of her unplanned coming-of-age trilogy, following her 2006 debut Water Lilies and 2011’s Tomboy. Sciamma’s films bear little relation to the easily digestible, feel-good dramadies often associated with the coming-of-age moniker; instead, they draw from the genre’s strength–juxtaposing universal experiences of love, friendship, fear, and struggle with the particularities of an individual’s development–to bring to light stories and perspectives that are often neglected, both in reality and onscreen. Sciamma’s first two films explore queer sexuality and gender identity; Girlhood follows the everyday lives of France’s lower-class women of color. As Sue Harris writes in her Sight & Sound review: “This is no quietly incremental coming-of-age narrative, but a brash, at times distressing series of snapshots of the life of undereducated black working-class girls on the bottom rung of every social and economic ladder.”

Featuring non-professional actresses discovered at casting calls in the working class suburbs of Paris, the film follows a young teen named Marieme (Karidja Touré) as she transforms herself into “Vic” through her entry into a gang of teenage girls who commit petty crimes together but also watch out for one another, defending against the isolation and insecurity that stems from abusive personal relationships and their marginalized status in contemporary French society.
GIRLHOOD is playing at the Indiana University Cinema on May 28th and 29th at 7PM, and May 30th at 3PM. The Blu-ray edition of the film will also be available as part of the Black Film Center/ Archive’s permanent collection.