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Mustang / Cuties

Four unhappy looking girls looking at the camera.
April 18, 2025 - 7:30 pm
In-person: 
Q&A with director Deniz Gamze Ergüven.


Admission is free. No advance reservations. Your seat will be assigned to you when you pick up your ticket at the box office. Seats are assigned on a first come, first served basis. The box office opens one hour before the event.

Mustang

France/Turkey, 2015

Mustang is a coming-of-age drama that follows five orphaned sisters in rural Turkey whose carefree summer triggers a harsh backlash. As the girls resist increased restrictions, their close-knit bond fuels powerful resilience. Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s visually pristine directorial debut is an act of defiance against patriarchal norms that deftly captures adolescent rebellion and awakening. It earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film in 2016. 

DCP, color, 97 min. Director: Deniz Gamze Ergüven. Screenwriter: Deniz Gamze Ergüven, Alice Winocour. With: Güneş Şensoy, Doğa Doğuşlu, Elit İşcan, Tuğba Sunguroğlu, İlayda Akdoğan.

Watch the trailer:


Cuties

Les Mignonnes, France, 2020

Based on interviews with young dancers in Paris, Cuties explores identity and rebellion through 11-year-old Amy, a French-Senegalese girl navigating cultural pressures at home and at school. When the film became enveloped in a right-wing fueled controversy, a group of women filmmakers, including Mary Harron and Julie Dash, defended it as “a sensitive portrayal of the emergent sexuality of young girls.” Ultimately, Cuties critiques, not endorses, the hypersexualization of girlhood today, compelling deeper reflection on outdated societal norms.

DCP, color, 136 min. Director/Screenwriter: Maïmouna Doucouré. With: Fathia Youssouf, Médina El Aidi-Azouni, Esther Gohourou, Ilanah Cami-Goursolas, Maïmouna Gueye.

—Public Programmer Beandrea July


Watch the trailer:

Part of: