‘Girls Will Be Girls’ Trailer: A North Indian Boarding Student Finds Herself in Shuchi Talati’s Acclaimed Debut

One of the most acclaimed directorial debuts of the 2024 Sundance Film Festival was “Girls Will Be Girls,” Shuchi Talati’s coming-of-age story set in a strict North Indian boarding school. And this September, arthouse audiences will have a chance to see the film (and the buzzy lead performance from first-time actress Preeti Panigrahi) on the big screen.

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The film’s official synopsis reads: “A model student, 16-year-old Mira (Preeti Panigrahi) is the first-ever female prefect in charge of enforcing rules at a straitlaced Indian boarding school in the Himalayas. Despite her ambition and primness, she can’t help but fall for new student Sri (Kesav Binoy Kiron), and steals away with him to flirt and stargaze. With frankness and sensitivity, writer-director Shuchi Talati uncovers the contradictory layers of Mira’s sexual awakening, the complicated feelings triggered in her protective, unfulfilled mother, and the school’s lax penalties for boys’ transgressive behavior.”

“Girls Will Be Girls” earned strong reviews after premiering at Sundance, with many praising Talati for authentically portraying Indian youth with a subtler touch than many other films.

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“Unlike commercial Hindi cinema, where themes have to be hammered home explicitly for a massive global audience, ‘Girls Will Be Girls’ deals in subtlety, leaving its title, implications, and final moments sublimely open to interpretation,” IndieWire’s Proma Khosla wrote in her Sundance review. “Talati finds constant poignance in girlhood, beautifying even heartbreak and doubt in the process of reflecting. While films like the blockbuster ‘Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani’ topple the patriarchy and preach progress, ‘Girls Will Be Girls’ supports its heroines by acknowledging that the foremost battles for liberation take place at home, in school, or alone in a room while blasting your favorite song.

“Girls Will Be Girls” opens at the Film Forum in New York City on Friday, September 13 before expanding to select markets. Watch the trailer, an IndieWire exclusive, below.