‘Girls Will Be Girls’: Director Shuchi Talati on rebellion, sexual awakening and combatting shame

Shuchi Talati’s first feature-length film, “Girls Will Be Girls”, tells the story of 16-year-old Mira, a model student at an elite Himalayan boarding school who gets swept up in a budding romance with a new male student. Things get complicated when Mira’s mother inserts herself into their relationship. Talati says she wanted to tell a story about sexual awakening without the shame she experienced in her own adolescence. While the film’s dynamic has been described as a love triangle, she says it’s really about two generations of women trying to push back against societal boundaries. Plus, film critic Lisa Nesselson tells us about Jessica Palud’s “Being Maria”, which explores how French actress Maria Schneider was traumatised by a now-infamous sex scene in the 1972 film “Last Tango in Paris”.