Girlhood
Bande de filles
Céline Sciamma’s triumphant film explores of a young girl’s search for identity in the underprivileged suburbs of Paris.
Director Céline Sciamma
Producer Bénédicte Couvreur
Screenwriter Céline Sciamma
With Karidja Touré, Assa Sylla, Lindsay Karamoh, Mariétou Touré
France 2014
112 mins
UK distribution STUDIOCANAL
Céline Sciamma (Waterlilies and Tomboy) returns with this glorious coming of age drama about a quartet of young black girls growing up in the working class outskirts of Paris. Marieme is the eldest daughter of a single mother who works nights, leaving her with full responsibility for her younger sisters and an older brother so authoritarian that his behaviour borders on the abusive. At first a lonely, solitary figure among the young girls on her estate, Marieme is soon adopted by a sassy group, and the quartet find strength and power together in a community where rough boys dominate. Less overtly ‘L, B, or T’ than her previous work, Sciamma’s Girlhood is a nuanced examination of female friendship, gender dynamics and identity. Rihanna’s ‘Diamonds’ provides the backdrop to one of the year’s most electrifying, joyful scenes: ‘eye to eye, so alive, we’re like diamonds in the sky...’.
Tricia Tuttle
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