Culture Interviews Cinema & Tv

“It’s my big feminist manifesto”: Alli Haapasalo on coming-of-age drama Girls Girls Girls

“It’s my big feminist manifesto”: Alli Haapasalo on coming-of-age drama Girls Girls Girls

Girls Girls Girls is the Sundance award-winning second feature from Finnish director Alli Haapasalo following three very distinct young women over three consecutive Fridays in their final days of high school, during which viewers are allowed a glimpse into the highs and lows of navigating their love lives and friendships. It’s refreshingly candid, intimate and raw, capturing the intensity and immediacy of each passing moment plus the fast-changing nature of youthful emotions that can flare in anger and passion then descend into vulnerability and angst in the blink of an eye. Yet the film also remains free from the sense of foreboding and threat that has become somewhat clichéd in the coming-of-age genre – particularly representation of the female experience of sexual awakening.

The Upcoming caught up with the director about wanting to make an optimistic feature about three girls exploring their sexuality and finding their identity. She described the result as her feminist manifesto that counters the very idea of “coming-of-age”, casting and working with Aamu Milonoff, Eleonoora Kauhanen and Linnea Leino to create lived-in, authentic characters. She also discussed how the cinema landscape seems to go in circles in allowing female-led and queer stories to be told, as well as mentioning her next feature, which will tackle a period drama from a contemporary angle.

Sarah Bradbury

Girls Girls Girls is released in select cinemas on 30th September 2022. Read our review here.

Watch the trailer for Girls Girls Girls here:

More in Cinema & Tv

Miley Cyrus unveils visual album Something Beautiful, streaming on Disney+ this July

The editorial unit

Ryan Gosling goes interstellar in Project Hail Mary, the latest sci-fi epic from the team behind The Martian and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

The editorial unit

Trailer drops for Roofman, Derek Cianfrance’s stranger-than-fiction crime drama starring Channing Tatum and Kirsten Dunst

The editorial unit

Dave Franco and Alison Brie face a rural nightmare in Michael Shanks’s upcoming horror film

The editorial unit

Jurassic World: Rebirth

Guy Lambert

Olivia Rodrigo at BST Hyde Park

Katherine Parry

Squid Game season three

Christina Yang

The Bear season four

Christopher Connor

F1 the Movie

Mark Worgan