Marieme is a reticent teenage girl who lives in a lower-class Paris neighbourhood with her parents and younger sister. The opportunity arrives for her to come out of her shell when a trio of local teens coaxes her into their gang, luring her with the promise of cute boys. Before long, Marieme has joined forces with the motley crew as they cruise shopping malls and threaten rival gangs on a freewheeling reign of terror. As she grows increasingly rebellious and assertive, the girl transforms from a subdued child to a young woman in control of her life.
»The characters themselves sparked the project. The teenage girls that I would regularly see hanging out in the vicinity of Paris’ Les Halles shopping centre, or in the metro, sometimes in Gare du Nord train station: always in a gang, loud, lively, dancing. Wanting to delve deeper, I sought out their blogs and came to be fascinated by their aesthetics, styles and poses. Beyond their irresistible energy, their profiles reflect all the themes that are at the heart of my ongoing work as a filmmaker: the construction of a feminine identity within the framework of social pressure, restrictions and taboos, in which the question of play on image and identity is central.«
- Céline Sciamma
Céline Sciamma
Born in 1978, Céline Sciamma grew up in suburban Paris. Having obtained a master’s degree in French literature, Sciamma attended screenwriting courses at the French film school La Femis. Céline’s first feature film, the critically acclaimed Water Lilies, was featured at more than 30 festivals worldwide and won the prestigious Louis Delluc Award. Her second feature film, Tomboy, was praised even more enthusiastically. Bande de filles was the first of her films to be selected for the Cannes Film Festival.