Summer holidays are when young people can find the freedom to push boundaries and explore their identity; relocating to a new home and school can let them change how they are perceived. In one such interlude of rupture and hiatus, a French pre-adolescent ventures into new territory.

After the success of her debut film Water Lilies, Schiamma side-stepped the pressure of expectations and opted instead to create this pared-down low-budget film, shot with a prosumer digital camera, a small crew of fourteen and a lead found on the first day of casting. “I wanted to shoot quickly, in twenty days, with fifty sequences and two locations.”

Sciamma situated the action in a mid-class suburb like the one she grew up in: “I like the contrast: apartment / forest. The apartment is the cosy nest of my protagonist; the forest has echoes of fairy tales and arcadia…”

The French Board of Education included Tomboy in its programme of films proposed for screening in primary schools, a decision that was fiercely debated.

“The film’s greatest accomplishment is writer/director Celine Sciamma’s stunning ability to draw natural, believable performances from her adolescent cast, who never hit a false note. … Tomboy gains power through its realism, not as an ‘issue movie’.” Brian Tallerico, HollywoodChicago.com

“Brisk, precisely observed, and bracingly non-preachy in its examination of a very tricky subject.” John Frosch, The Atlantic

This was an LGBT History Month screening.