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Paris-based sales agent Alpha Violet has acquired the rights to Fernanda Tovar‘s feature debut “Sad Girlz.” The sensitive coming-of-ager, which will world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival as part of the Generation strand, follows two best friends in the aftermath of a traumatic event.
In “Sad Girlz,” it’s summer in Mexico, and sixteen-year-olds Paula (Darana Álvarez) and La Maestra (Rocio Guzmán) are training to represent their country at the Junior Pan American Swimming Championship in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. They play with pictures of Brazil’s uber-famous soccer player Vini Jr. and teach each other words in Portuguese before heading to reggaeton dancing on cobbled streets, long afternoons melting into one another with the heat.
One night, Paula ends up alone with a teammate, Daniel. Soon after, La Maestra senses something has shifted in her best friend. What happened that fateful night changes the girls’ lives over the course of the summer, with the film touching upon sensitive issues of trauma and guilt as the two tensely prance around difficult conversations that forever alter their relationship.
Tovar is a member of Mexico’s Colectivo Colmena and a former participant at Berlinale Talents Latin America. Her short, “My Age, Yours, and the Age of the World,” was featured at Cannes’ Critics’ Week in 2022.
Speaking with Variety, the director says she spent a long time thinking about approaching the “wound” that is the subject of sexual abuse and its aftermath without “reopening it.” “I spent a long time wondering how to speak about a wound like this without reopening it. I wanted to shift the gaze away from the imagery and the language of violence, because sometimes it feels as if fire only ever gives birth to more fire.”
“Sad Girlz” forgoes an explicit depiction of the assault itself, in line with other recent films that broach the subject, such as Gemma Blasco’s SXSW-winning “Fury” and Eva Victor’s “Sorry, Baby.” “I believe we must tell the stories of what hurts us, of what keeps us awake at night, but I no longer wanted to add more violent images to a world already saturated by them,” emphasizes Tovar. “There is already so much darkness around us. What I wanted was to turn, gently, toward love, toward light, toward the fragile and necessary work of empathy.”
Asked about how she prepared her young cast to broach such a sensitive issue, Tovar says the girls are “so young, yet so remarkably intelligent.” “I realized that youth today is very different from when I was their age. With the internet, they are exposed to an amount of information that simply wasn’t available to earlier generations. We talked a great deal with the boys and girls in the cast, and at times I felt they knew more than I did. It was a process I will always treasure, for everything it taught me and for how it revealed the importance of open communication and dialogue, which was always at the heart of our work.”
“During the acting preparation, I was accompanied by Paulina Álvarez and Michelle Betancourt – actresses, teachers, and acting coaches – and together we created a safe space for conversation and exploration,” the director continues. “These safe spaces were essential for approaching such sensitive themes and the wounds that touch us all; within them, we were able to form a sense of community, to hold one another, and to face what was difficult with care and trust.”
When it comes to preparing the young cast, Tovar emphasizes the extensive swimming training the actors went through. A coach from Mexico’s youth swimming team rigorously trained the actors for three months while Tovar explored the construction of the characters and their bond through improvisation, strengthening the complicity between them. “At first, they could only manage a basic dog paddle,” the filmmaker recalls. “In just three months, their progress was extraordinary, and by the end, they were able to swim almost all of their scenes themselves. “Oscar Lever, who plays Sergio, is ranked among the top five swimmers in the country.”
In “Sad Girlz,” the Mexican teenagers dream not to travel to the U.S. or Europe, common stereotypes featured in Latin American coming-of-age films. When asked about why she chose to break that pattern and have Brazil as the promised land in her film, Tovar recalls growing up “thinking that going to the United States was the ultimate dream, then Europe after that.”
“In so many of our stories, those who succeeded always ended up heading north, to the so-called ‘global north,’” she adds. “I wanted this dream to be different, to turn south instead. Latin America holds such vast diversity, so many dreams that bloom within our own lands and our own stories, and I felt it was important to give them a voice. Beyond that, I have always been captivated by Brazilian cinema and music. Brazil is a country close to my heart, and I am married to a Brazilian—so this love for its art is deeply personal. Bringing it into the film felt like a way to celebrate the richness and joy of Latin America itself, and to let the girls’ dreams resonate with warmth, music, and life that feels close to home.”
As for premiering in Berlin, Tovar says it feels like “a dream come true.” “What I want most is for the film to be seen. I’m so curious to see how the boys and girls in Berlin will react. More than anything, I can’t wait to celebrate and share this moment with the whole team, with my family and friends, whose support has been unwavering from the very beginning.”
Virginie Devesa and Keiko Funato, CEOs of Alpha Violet, added that Tovar’s debut deals with “first times” and “how to deal with them for the best.” “Fernanda Tovar uses such a playful visual style, fun characters, and above all, a very honest and emotional ride that I believe will convince buyers and professionals at first sight. We are very excited to work with this new female filmmaker for her debut film, as it is a new discovery for Alpha Violet.”
Alpha Violet will kick off sales for “Sad Girlz” at the Berlin Festival’s European Film Market, as well as that of their two other titles in João Nuno Pinto’s “18 Holes to Paradise” and Alexander Murphy’s “Goodbye Sisters.” Both films had their world premieres at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.
‘Sad Girlz’ is produced by Daniel Loustaunau and Araceli Velázquez for Colectivo Colmena (Mexico) in co-production with Carlo D’Ursi (Potenza Producciones, Spain), Samuel Chauvin (Promenades Films, France), Martini Shot Films and CTT Exp & Rentals. The film was supported by Eficine (Mexico), ICAA (Spain) and the CNC National Film Board and Sacem in France.
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