Why Indo-French movie ‘Girls Will Be Girls’ was shot by a mostly female crew

Shuchi Talati, writer-director of Girls Will Be Girls, which debuted at the ongoing Sundance Film Festival, wanted to create a movie set where girls could be girls. “And because the film is about a young girl’s sexuality, for me it was very important to build a safe space where the cast could be vulnerable.” Girls Will Be Girls was among the first titles picked to compete in the festival’s world dramatic competition, a Sundance programmer informed viewers at the film’s premiere. Film sets are very ‘male’ everywhere but that is a little bit more true in India.” After six years in the making, several funding applications, and a stint at the Berlinale Talents Script Station programme later, Girls Will Be Girls was introduced at the grand Egyptian Theatre in Park City, Utah, where an international audience gasped and giggled along with the plot’s subtle twists. Talati was also fascinated by the boarding schools described in Enid Blyton’s St. Clare’s and Malory Towers, as well as her own school in Vadodara, “where they policed everyone but especially the girls”. “Sometimes you don’t even tell your best friend that you kissed your boyfriend.” The film’s protagonist Mira is one such girl who, as a straight A student and the first female head prefect of her school, must walk the tightrope between upholding the “age-old Indian culture” and asserting her budding sexual agency.