Past screening

Adolescents

Directed by: Sébastien Lifshitz
Runtime: 2hr 15min Year: 2019

Details

Directed by: Sébastien Lifshitz
Runtime: 2hr 15min Year: 2019
Country: France
Last Screened: Fri 22nd May 2020

In this beautifully observed cinema vérité film, we spend five years watching best friends Emma and Anaïs, who are growing up in a provincial French town.

The girls hail from strikingly different family backgrounds. Their friendship is tight, but they are inevitably growing apart as their studies take them on different tracks. Director Sébastien Lifshitz follows them from boy-obsessed 13-year-olds to young adults fighting with their mothers and trying to carve out independence, against the background of troubling events, including the Charlie Hebdo attacks.

Remarkably intimate filming captures the many emotions of adolescence in scenes which often play out like a drama. A gem of a coming-of-age film, this is one to savour on the big screen.