| Girls Will Be Girls | |
| Director: | Shuchi Talati |
| Producer: | Richa Chadha Claire Chassagne Shuchi Talati |
| Starring: | Preeti Panigrahi Kesav Binoy Kiron Kani Kusruti |
| Cinematography: | Jih-E Peng |
| Editing: | Amrita David |
| Music: | Pierre Oberkampf Sneha Khanwalkar |
| Production Companies: | Pushing Buttons Studios Blink Digital Cinema Inutile Crawling Angel Films Dolce Vita Films |
| Distributor: | Luxbox |
| Runtime: | 118 minutes |
| Country: | India France |
| Language: | Indian English Hindi |
Girls Will Be Girls (stylized in all-lowercase; Hindi: गर्ल्स विल बी गर्ल्स) is a 2024 Indo-French coming-of-age drama film written and directed by Shuchi Talati.[1] [2] [3] 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.[4] 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.[5]
Talati conceived the story of the film in 2018, drawing from her own experiences as a young girl, her school in Vadodara, and Enid Blyton's book series Malory Towers and St. Clare's. At the direction of Talati, the film was produced by a majority female crew in order to create a safe space where "girls could be girls." The female crew include producers Claire Chassange and Richa Chadha, Taiwanese cinematographer Jih-E Peng, production designer Avyakta Kapur, and editor Amrita David. The film was produced by Pushing Buttons Studios, and received a production grant from the French Aide aux Cinemas du Monde in 2021.[6] It was shot over 45 days in the northern Indian region of Uttarakhand, and in the capital Dehradun.[7] [8]
The film was selected for the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, participating in the competition section of the festival.[9] It was also entered for the 47th iteration of the Gothenburg Film Festival.[10]