The official trailer for Big Girls Don’t Cry, rising Aotearoa New Zealand filmmaker Paloma Schneideman’s breakout debut feature, is out.
The trailer arrived ahead of its unveiling on the opening day of this year’s New Zealand International Film Festival (NZIFF), following a hugely successful international festival run.
Big Girls Don’t Cry will open in all NZIFF locations — Napier, Hamilton, Matakana, New Plymouth, Christchurch, Dunedin, Tauranga, Wellington, Masterton, and Nelson, in addition to Auckland — before being given a nationwide release in cinemas on October 8th.
“Set during one transformative summer in rural New Zealand in 2006, the film follows 14-year-old Sid Bookman as she navigates friendship, identity, sexuality, desire and the rapidly expanding online world,” the official longline reads. “Desperate to reinvent herself, Sid becomes caught between childhood and adolescence as she searches for belonging among a group of older teenagers.”
Big Girls Don’t Cry was shot on location in New Zealand, in Auckland, Omaha, and the wider Matakana region, with Schneideman utilising classic cultural gems of the early 2000s such as MSN Messenger.
The film stars newcomer Ani Palmer in the lead role as Sid, joined by Rain Spencer (The Summer I Turned Pretty, Good Girl Jane), Noah Taylor (Almost Famous, Shine), Tara Canton, Ngātaitangirua Hita, Beatrix Rain Wolfe, and Poroaki Merritt-McDonald (Sgt. Haane, Muru).
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Big Girls Don’t Cry‘s international festival run included its world premiere in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival, where it was a finalist for the festival’s prestigious World Cinema Dramatic Award. Schneideman also took her debut to SXSW, BFI Flare London, and TIFF Next Wave.
When Big Girls Don’t Cry won the Grand Prix award at the Nouvelles Vagues International Film Festival in Biarritz, France, the jury’s leader Kristen Stewart expressed her deep love for the film.
“What happens to this girl happens to all of us, one way or another,” the Hollywood star said. “This experience didn’t take me back into trauma. It allowed me to see what this young girl couldn’t see: that she is the coolest girl. And even though it hurts terribly now, everything will be alright.”
On the NZIFF front, Big Girls Don’t Cry is the first feature film to emerge from Jane Campion’s ‘A Wave in the Ocean’ programme, an initiative created by the Academy Award-winning filmmaker to support emerging New Zealand directors. (Campion also serves as an executive producer on the film.)
Schneideman, who is based in Auckland, says returning home with the film is especially meaningful: “I made ‘Big GirlsDon‘t Cry’ for my 14-year-old self. Not for comfort, but for catharsis. It’s a deeply personal film, and bringing it home to Aotearoa – to the people it was made for and by — feels incredibly special.”
Find out more about Big Girls Don’t Cry here.
From Rolling Stone AU/NZ