Big Girls Don't Cry

Mahutonga—Opening Film

Premiering at Sundance earlier this year, Paloma Schneideman’s coming-of-age debut launches our festival with a tender portrait of 14-year-old Sid, as she tentatively traverses insecurity, identity and desire during the summer of 2006.

It’s the summer school holidays of 2006 and stormy 14-year-old Sid (Ani Palmer) is desperate to reinvent herself. She lives with her dad (Noah Taylor) and older sister (Tara Canton) in a rural town near Ōmaha, the usually-sleepy beach destination that, during the summer, brings an influx of holidaymakers — a fresh audience for Sid’s performance of her ideal self. Not a girl, not yet a woman, she’s aching to be recognised as a grown up by her family, by boys, by the bewitching older girls who seem so impossibly at ease in themselves and their bodies, namely her older sister’s friend Freya (Rain Spencer).

Playing out during the era of dial-up internet, dubstep and MSN, Big Girls Don’t Cry is a raw, lingering reflection on the clumsy bravado that is growing up, exploring queer adolescence, female shame and burgeoning sexuality. From the casual cruelty of teenagers to the indignity of being caught in a white lie told to seem cool, Sid’s search for approval is excruciatingly recognisable for anyone who has ever felt confused, isolated, desperate to fit in or terrified to be found out.

The film premiered at Sundance Film Festival, where it was a finalist for the World Cinema Dramatic Award. With echoes of Rain (dir. Christine Jeffs, NZIFF 2001) in its sensual, intimate rendering of girlhood, the film belongs to a rare lineage of New Zealand cinema; emotionally raw, psychologically observant works unafraid of vulnerability, longing, awkwardness, and the heightened emotional world of youth. Having had numerous short films programmed at NZIFF (Gate Crash NZIFF 2023, Memory Foam NZIFF 2019, Mine NZIFF 2014), we are honoured to present Paloma Schneideman’s debut feature as our 2026 Opening Night film in its Aotearoa premiere.