Girl Power!

Girls and girlhood have fascinated creators, both in film and beyond, for a long time. We only need to think of Nabokov’s famous Lolita, whose budding sexuality is the object of fascination for the main character (as well as for the author himself), to realize that the image of a girl on the one hand embodies carefreeness, fun and fluid identity, but on the other conceals a dark, dangerous potential, full of more or less pronounced desire, resulting mainly from patriarchal beliefs and the tendency to fetishize girls.

But this year’s special themed section of Mastercard OFF CAMERA doesn’t concern itself with male delusions and the fantasies about girlhood that abound in our culture. Instead, it offers diverse, complex, sometimes funny, sometimes touching cinematic representations of young and adolescent girls that fascinate and intrigue with their strength, steadfastness, and sense of humor. These qualities help them to emerge victorious from the various traps that a reality steeped in sexism still sets for them. The films screened in this section examine the class, race, and gender differences between female characters, emphatically demonstrating the power and relevance of the now iconic slogan from the second half of the 1990s: “Girl Power!” However it’s no longer characterized by naively understood white feminism; instead it embodies an emancipation that results from the acceptance and celebration of diversity. All you’ll want to do is shout along with the characters up on the screen: “Girl Power!” And then — vigorously, fearlessly, and tirelessly — explore and save the world.