The Other Girls

Caroline Vignal debuts with this sensitive teen comedy about 16-year-old girl looking to lose her virginity. Apprentice hairdresser Solange (Julie Leclercq) is a whiz at teasing locks and cutting hair but knows little about the act of sexual congress -- but she wants to know more. She hails from a small working class town close to Toulouse where she lives with her comely mother, who grudgingly works as a babysitter, and her father, who loves herding ostriches. Her best friend in beauty school is an African immigrant lass named Gary (Benoite Sapim) who dreads being returned to her native country for an arranged marriage. Gary offers Solange advice in her quest. Though there is a guy Solange fancies at her vocational school, she wants to know the lay of the land, so to speak, before she gets intimate with him. This film was screened at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival.