{"id":919511,"date":"2026-10-07T15:02:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T15:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/919511\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T15:02:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T15:02:09","slug":"rip-it-open-big-girls-dont-cry-director-explores-wounds-of-early-love-in-film-festival-hit-new-zealand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/919511\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Rip it open\u2019: Big Girls Don\u2019t Cry director explores wounds of early love in film festival hit | New Zealand"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Big Girls Don\u2019t Cry, the New Zealand<\/a> coming-of-age film quietly devastating film festivals, there is a scene on a moonlit beach. It features the main character, Sid, played by Ani Palmer, and one of the cool older city boys who has come to the small, golden-sand town of \u014cmaha for the summer. It is a deeply relatable, deeply uncomfortable watch; reliving the teenage negotiation \u2013 or not \u2013 of consent feels unsettling and validating.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, an 18-year-old at the screening last night said, \u2018I feel so seen and exposed,\u201d director and writer Paloma Schneideman, 34, says. \u201cI was like, whoa, that\u2019s quite an astute way to think about it. One is cathartic and healing, and the other is quite confronting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schneideman says she wanted to tell a story about the place \u201cbetween consent and non-consent, where it was just something we felt we had to do\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s such a tricky space, and I don\u2019t think we see it a lot. How do we make amends with the scars of that time?\u201d<\/p>\n

Ani Palmer plays the main character, Sid, who negotiates adolescence in the golden-sand town of \u014cmaha. Photograph: Jen Raoult<\/p>\n

The global response to Shneideman\u2019s debut film, which also explores desire, queerness and finding your way \u2013 in this case, through small-town New Zealand in the early millennium \u2013 suggests the need to feel empathy for our teenage selves is universally felt.<\/p>\n

Since its debut at the Sundance film festival<\/a> in February, the film has won the Nouvelle Vagues film festival\u2019s Grand Prix \u2013 actor Kristen Stewart<\/a> said it \u201cunpacks the early 2000s, and subliminal trespass, and pain and strength \u2026 with such an astounding touch\u201d \u2013 and has been shown at major festivals from South by Southwest to London\u2019s BFI Flare. Variety called it a \u201cgentle, rigorous, queer coming of age story\u201d, while the Hollywood Reporter said it \u201cpulses with a powerful sense of place and terrifically charged scenes of chaotic intimacy\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ahead of its general release in New Zealand and the US on 8 and 9 October, Shneideman is feeling grateful for the way it\u2019s connected with audiences. \u201cThe most amazing part is seeing how many people take such ownership over the film, they think it\u2019s for them. And it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Sleepless nights\u2019<\/p>\n

The film\u2019s protagonist, 14-year-old Sid, negotiates adolescence at a time of fledgling dial-up internet and brick phones, where options for connecting with like-minded people or exploring sexuality included booting up MSN messenger or flicking through satellite TV to covertly watch Red Shoe Diaries. It wasn\u2019t a particularly safe moment to be queer, or a teenage girl in New Zealand.<\/p>\n

\u201cI found the one queer person in [high school] and they very quickly became my best friend,\u201d Shneideman says. \u201cThere was a boy in the First XV [rugby team] who people found out had two mums, and it was the point of gossip and bullying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shneideman developed Big Girls Don\u2019t Cry while at Wave in the Ocean, the prestigious film school set up by Oscar-award winning director Jane Campion<\/a> (The Piano, Power of the Dog) as part of its first 10-person intake in 2022. It\u2019s the first feature film to be released by a graduate, and is supported by the New Zealand Film Commission.<\/p>\n

Ani Palmer in Big Girls Don\u2019t Cry, which explores desire, queerness, shame, and finding your way. Photograph: Jen Raoult<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were sort of these guinea pigs and we just had the best time, learning from the best practitioners in the country and if we weren\u2019t doing that we were watching and shooting films and having mental breakdowns together,\u201d Shneideman says. The script she began writing in 2019 kept evolving, even as it got into the hands of Palmer, Australian actor Noah Taylor, and American Rain Spencer in the 25 days it was shot between \u014cmaha and Auckland early last year. \u201cThey\u2019re all master improvisers, they meet me in this middle space between the script and the screen. Some of their best lines were theirs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Campion, named as an executive producer on Big Girls Don\u2019t Cry, encouraged creativity \u2013 including a daily movement practice \u2013 and listening to intuition, Schneideman says. \u201cShe was very much \u2018the precedents you set for yourself in your first film will stay with you for the rest of your career,\u2019 so lead how you want to lead.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a result, Schneideman developed what she calls a \u201cbody gauge\u201d during Big Girls Don\u2019t Cry to help her discern if a shot, a performance, or a cut wasn\u2019t right. \u2018When the work\u2019s not there, when the performance is not there, it actually just makes me feel quite sick. I can\u2019t tell you how many sleepless nights I had, staring up at the wall being like \u2013 how do we blow that up and start it again and fix it?\u201d she says. \u201cMy whole thing as a film-maker is to try and make you not notice any of the work, so as soon as something pulls you out, we\u2019ve failed.\u201d<\/p>\n

From left, Rain Spencer, Noah Taylor, Paloma Schneideman and Ani Palmer at the 2026 Sundance film festival. Photograph: Arturo Holmes\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

She\u2019s got a whirlwind of international release dates ahead of her, but Shneideman is already looking ahead. On a taxi-ride recently to LAX, she found herself running through scenes for the next film she wants to make, which she describes as an \u201canti romance,\u201d exploring the wounds of lost love.<\/p>\n

Will this be a hallmark of her career? \u201cYeah. Rip it open. Then when I finally feel healed, just rip it open again. We don\u2019t want a film that\u2019s just happy, and everything goes right. I think that would be deeply dissatisfying.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In Big Girls Don\u2019t Cry, the New Zealand coming-of-age film quietly devastating film festivals, there is a scene…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":919512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,134],"class_list":["post-919511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=919511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/919512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=919511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=919511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=919511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}