Paula and La Maestra, 16, are the inseparable protagonists of Fernanda Tovar’s debut feature film Sad Girlz (Chicas Tristes). The strongest swimmers on their team, they are training to represent Mexico at the Junior Pan American Swimming Championships. One night at a party, though, something happens that forces them to choose between silence and speaking out. And it will test the limits of their friendship.
The movie world premieres on Saturday, Feb. 14 in the Generation 14plus program of the Berlin International Film Festival.
Written and directed by Tovar (short films My Age, Yours, and the Age of the World, The Fire We’ve Built, I Want to Violently Crash Into the Windshield of Love), with cinematography by Rosa Hadit Hernández and editing by José Pablo Escamilla, Sad Girlz was produced by Colectivo Colmena, in co-production with Potenza Producciones, Promenades Films, Martini Shot Films, and CTT Exp & Rentals. Alpha Violet is handling world sales.
Rocio Guzmán, as Maestra, and Darana Álvarez, as Paula, star in Sad Girlz. The cast also features Tatsumi Milori, Tomás García-Agraz, Mónica del Carmen, Raúl Villegas, Lucio Lemus, Luisa Almaguer, Andrea Camacho, Áyax, Óscar Lever, Mario Flores, Héctor Kuri, and Daniel Aranzubia.
A synopsis for Sad Girlz shares this much about the party that changes everything in the film. “Paula ends up alone with Daniel, a good friend and her long-time crush. Amid reggaeton, flirting and shots, Paula and Daniel slip into the bathroom together. Soon after, La Maestra senses that something has changed.”
The two friends start looking at consent and searching for answers to what happened. “They try to name the experience, and what they find feels devastating,” reads the synopsis. “As the two girls respond in different ways, their bond is put to the test.”
In press notes, Tovar shares: “Growing up, I thought women were sad in general. I saw sadness as a characteristic of womanhood in a way, and even growing up in Mexico with the dramatic influences of the telenovela culture, I never knew why exactly that was. I guess Sad Girlz both shows and hides that reason.”
About the chemistry between her two lead actresses, she highlights: “When we paired them, they did an improv which was so good that I later wrote it in, and it made it into the film – I was completely taken away, when I first saw them together. They had the right amount of both complicity and confrontation, which was needed.”
During a long rehearsal process, “we did a lot of acting exercises for them to build up trust, and I also took part in them,” the filmmaker also explains. “Some of them were physical – looking each other in the eye for a long time, or touching each other’s hands – and I wanted to be present and vulnerable too, for them to trust me.”
And Tovar notes: “What surprised me the most was discovering how much they know about life! … I didn’t have to explain anything to them, in fact, they were the ones explaining stuff to me! Another thing that surprised me was how attuned the boys in the cast were – during the rehearsal process, they suspected something was wrong with the character of Paula, but they didn’t know, so they improvised around it very well.”
The filmmaker also had a reason for making her characters swimmers. “So many of the conversations around gender violence sideline important, core needs, like: What about our spaces? What about our dreams?” she explains. “I chose swimming specifically because it’s a sport that makes you vulnerable in a way that not many sports do – you not only have to undress in front of others, but you also have to be in your swimsuit at all times. The bodily relationship to swimming is different from other sports, which I felt gave some vulnerability to the film and to the characters.”
AI and technology may be able to answer questions, such as the ones the Sad Girlz duo is looking into. But the director warns: “There is no human empathy and no warmth. I sometimes feel that as AI continues to advance, the human aspects of life will become increasingly precious. So my main goal was to show that – the actual bright things that end up saving your life in those confusing and impossible to define moments.”
Speaking of technology… THR can now premiere an exclusive and intense clip from Sad Girlz. In fact, you could cut the atmosphere with a knife. In the scene, the two best friends ask ChatGPT, and tarot cards, for help. Watch the clip here.
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