Summer in a Paris suburb. Nedjma roams the streets with her girlfriends – the gang is like her second family. When she sees Zina, the new girl in the neighbourhood, for the first time, she falls head over heels in an instant. The only problem: Zina belongs to a rival clique. Nedjma is torn, between her loyalty to her group and her desire for Zina, which grows with every night that the two spend together in secret. Nedjma is forced to decide what she actually wants to fight for.

Compelling and briskly paced, Marion Desseigne-Ravel delivers a modern, raw variation on “Juliette-and-Juliette” that is authentic and keeps a constant tight focus on its characters. Lina El Arabi and Esther Rollande shine as a passionate pair of lovers who scrap by day and lay in one another’s arms by night. A true pearl of young, queer cinema from France.

Out of competition as part of “Kino macht Schule” in cooperation with the Wiesbaden Media Center and donum vitae Regionalverbund für Wiesbaden und den Rheingau-Taunus-Kreis e. V.

Marion Desseigne-Ravel studied at the film school La Fémis in Paris and directed a number of short films after graduating. These included LES MURS, VOYAGE EN LÉMURIE and FARIYA, which were shown at numerous festivals. In her fictional stories, she draws heavily from reality and is particularly interested in human desire in hostile environments. BESTIES is her first feature-length film.

Filmography (selection): 2010 LES MURS, 2013 VOYAGE EN LÉMURIE, 2018 FARIYA (all short films), 2021 BESTIES