Paloma Schneideman’s coming-of-age film Big Girls Don’t Cry has emerged as a festival favorite, exploring themes of consent, queerness, and adolescent trauma in 2000s New Zealand. The film, which premiered at Sundance and won the Nouvelle Vagues film festival’s Grand Prix, has drawn acclaim for its raw depiction of teenage experiences and its director’s nuanced approach to storytelling.
Drawing from Personal and Cultural Roots
Director Paloma Schneideman, 34, drew from her own adolescence in small-town New Zealand to craft Big Girls Don’t Cry, a film that examines the fraught space between consent and non-consent. It’s such a tricky space, and I don’t think we see it a lot. How do we make amends with the scars of that time?
she said, reflecting on the film’s central tension. The story follows 14-year-old Sid, navigating queerness, bullying, and the pressures of a pre-digital era, where MSN and satellite TV were the primary avenues for connection.
Schneideman developed the film while at Wave in the Ocean, the film school founded by Jane Campion, which she described as having the best time, learning from the best practitioners in the country and if we weren’t doing that we were watching and shooting films and having mental breakdowns together.
The project, supported by the New Zealand Film Commission, was shot in 25 days across Ōmaha and Auckland. They’re all master improvisers,
Schneideman said of her cast, including Ani Palmer, who plays Sid. Some of their best lines were theirs.
Earning Praise and Connection
The film’s emotional resonance has been widely noted. Actor Kristen Stewart praised it for unpacks the early 2000s, and subliminal trespass, and pain and strength … with such an astounding touch,
while the Hollywood Reporter highlighted its pulses with a powerful sense of place and terrifically charged scenes of chaotic intimacy.
Variety called it a gentle, rigorous, queer coming of age story,
emphasizing its ability to evoke empathy for teenage experiences.
Intense Methods and Future Projects
Schneideman’s approach to filmmaking is marked by intensity. She developed a “body gauge” to assess whether a scene “was right,” admitting, When the work’s not there, when the performance is not there, it actually just makes me feel quite sick.
The film’s release in New Zealand and the US on 8 and 9 October has been preceded by a whirlwind of festival appearances, including South by Southwest and London’s BFI Flare.
Looking ahead, Schneideman is already conceptualizing her next project, an “anti romance” exploring the wounds of lost love.
“Rip it open,” she said of her creative philosophy. Then when I finally feel healed, just rip it open again. We don’t want a film that’s just happy, and everything goes right.