EIFF 2025: Little Trouble Girls
Slovenian director Urška Djukić's Little Trouble Girls explores the friendship and burgeoning desires between teen girls from a Catholic choir during a retreat
Early in Urška Djukić's debut feature, 16-year-old Lucia (Jara Sofija Ostan) quietly admits to her new friends that she is late to adolescent rites of passage, but in this sensual coming-of-age film, her interiority thrums loud and full.
When Lucia's Catholic choir visits an Italian convent for a retreat, the teen's burgeoning desires unfurl. She's drawn to the confident, slightly older Ana-Maria (Mina Švajger), who wears a brightly coloured outfit paired with lipstick, the kind Lucia's mum forbids her to wear. Lucia can't help but gaze at Ana-Maria in fascination. Lingering moments are paired with floral motifs, one of many uses of poetic symbolism that punctuate the narrative.
Friendship grows into more. Against a local order of sin, penance, virginity and celibacy, Lucia's intuitive pursuits with Ana-Maria stand in freeing, forbidden contrast. Their friendship group rebels as a whole, too, reversing acts of looking by voyeuristically spying on men. These challenges to social norms are shown to have limits, however. When the choir conductor humiliates Lucia at practice, accusing her of being disrespectful, it veils a retaliatory judgment on her attraction to women.
Refrains of rhythmical rites catch on her ears at key moments, whispers of old compared to how Lucia really feels. This dichotomy is rendered in lyrics from the closing song, a near namesake of the film, Little Trouble Girl, by Sonic Youth: 'But you'll never know, what I feel inside.' By the end of her story, Lucia shows us the most important thing: that she does know herself and accepts herself for it.
Released 29 Aug by BFI; certificate 15
Little Trouble Girls has its UK premiere at EIFF on 15, 16, 17 & 18 Aug – tickets via edfilmfest.org