'Rip it open': Big Girls Don’t Cry director explores wounds of early love in film festival hit
Director Paloma Schneideman explores issues of consent and queerness in coming-of-age film set in New Zealand
TL;DR
- Big Girls Don’t Cry is a New Zealand coming-of-age film exploring consent, desire, and queerness.
- Director Paloma Schneideman aimed to capture the difficult space "between consent and non-consent."
- The film has garnered international acclaim at festivals like Sundance, winning the Grand Prix at Nouvelle Vagues.
- It portrays adolescence in the early 2000s, referencing limited technology and social challenges for LGBTQ+ youth.
- Schneideman developed the film at Jane Campion's Wave in the Ocean film school.
- The director emphasizes intuition and a "body gauge" to ensure authenticity in filmmaking.
- Schneideman is already planning future projects, seeking to explore the "wounds of lost love" in an "anti romance."