If there’s one type of movie you can expect to see at the Sundance Film Festival, it’s a coming-of-age film. For Paloma Schneideman, directing and premiering “Big Girls Don’t Cry” at Sundance was her way of giving back to the genre that had given her so much.  Schneideman opened a post-screening QA by talking about her experience living in New Zealand and being exposed to independent films for the first time.  “Films have always helped me to understand myself way more than, growing up in rural New Zealand, my community could, because we just weren’t having those kinds of conversations,” Schneideman said. Her town eventually started to gentrify, but with that came an art house cinema where she saw “Little Miss Sunshine,” a Sundance darling that happened to be celebrating its 20th anniversary at the festival.  “My mind was just blown that there was so much more out there for me, that there was a world beyond the hills,” Schneideman said. “Every time a film is made like that, the dialogue is open, and the shame is distilled, and we feel more comfortable to speak, and speaking is healing.” That set Schneideman on a path that would eventually lead her to write and direct “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” her take on the queer coming-of-age picture.  “I think I had just been given that by so many films that were so formative that I would love to pass on some of that legacy and give it back,” Schneideman said. “It felt like a film for New Zealand, but I hope it resonates with you guys as well.” “Big Girls Don’t Cry” stars first-time screen actor Ani Palmer as Syd, a young teen living in rural New Zealand and navigating the throes of adolescence. Her summer vacation has just started, it’s 2006, and, inexplicably, all Syd seems to want to do is spend time with the older, cooler girls in her life — like her sister’s friend from America, Freya, played by Rain Spencer of “The Summer I Turned Pretty.”  Syd is earnest, a bit aloof and a lot naive. She’s daring, too, willing to take the plunge where others might stand on the edge. She gains a new group of friends by providing them alcohol from her father’s stash, which he’s too checked out to notice, and a summer of firsts begins. Syd goes to her first party, poses as an older boy online, has her first drink, pierces her own belly button, tries marijuana, makes friends with boys and realizes girls are actually so, so pretty. Her questionable decision-making fast tracks her burgeoning sense of self faster than she can seem to understand.  Part of that exploding sense of self is thanks to the year the film is set, 2006, said Schneideman. “The mid-2000s were a big time for us (in New Zealand.) Did you guys have Bibo?” Schneideman asked the crowd. “You’re more Myspace, yeah. Ripping songs off Pirate Bay or Limewire — hopefully there’s a statute of limitations.”  She said the arrival of MTV in her home was huge.  “Those were probably my first experiences or models of anything of sexuality, but also, I remember seeing Tila Tequila for the first time, just having my mind blown. So it felt like a really fitting backdrop for a coming-of-age story because it wasn’t just this young woman on the edge of discovering her sexuality and her identity, but it was like the nation was coming of age as well,” she said. “I felt like the pairing of the two would make this really great pressure cooker.” The film depended on the chemistry between the actors, who were a mix of first-timers and the more seasoned, Schneideman said. Casting Syd in particular was one of the production’s big challenges.  “I got sent through a wave of maybe 100 audition tapes,” Schneideman said.  She decided her approach would be to look at the auditions’ thumbnails and start with the actor who looked the least like the picture of Syd in her mind.  “And so I was scrolling through, and I saw this little person with dark emo hair. They look a little like punk rock chick,” Schneideman said. “I’m like, ‘Oh, it’s definitely not her.’ So I click on it, and I watch it for eight seconds, and I was like, ‘That’s my … Syd.’ And it was Ani’s tape, the first one I clicked on. It was just one of those divine moments.” She said what stood out to her was seeing how well Palmer showed the act of listening.  “Even if she’s folding socks, she’s very compelling to watch,” Schneideman said. Palmer laughed. She said she appreciated the director’s trust and the time spent in rehearsals just getting to know the other actors.  “We spent quite a few days just going to, like, a cafe, and talking about life and our experiences,” Palmer said. “And I think that really helped us connect and therefore helped me understand the character more.”  For Spencer, whose character is a cool-girl, devil-may-care American through whom Syd begins to understand she likes girls, Schneideman was a great collaborator.   “I trusted Paloma immediately. Might be the coolness or the charm, or just the script and the honesty that you brought to us,” Spencer said. “I just feel like you’re very honest in yourself, and you just made it extremely easy, set up a safe environment for us.” Noah Taylor, who plays Syd’s somewhat absent but loving father, said he was initially concerned about working with a young, first-time director. But his fears were quickly assuaged, particularly through the strength of the script. “Working with her was really one of the most profound experiences I’ve had, actually, on a set,” Taylor said. “There are risks working with a first-time filmmaker. (But) she had such a precise vision and was so generous in wanting everyone else to come on that journey with her.” “Big Girls Don’t Cry” ends on an ambiguous note. Schneideman said that was intentional, something taken from the coming-of-age genre she had learned to appreciate.  “I really wanted to invite viewers to project their own understanding and their own means to resolve it for themselves instead of pushing them to feel a certain type of way,” she said. “It’s really a film that invites you to project your own experience and understanding onto it.” The post ‘Big Girls Don’t Cry’ is director’s ode to the coming-of-age genre appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less