Schoolgirls (film)

Schoolgirls (also known as The Girls; Las niñas) is a 2020 Spanish coming-of-age drama film written and directed by Pilar Palomero, starring Andrea Fandos and Natalia de Molina.

The film won the Goya Award for Best Film, along with Best New Director and Best Original Screenplay for Palomero, and Best Cinematography for Daniela Cajías, from a total of nine nominations, at the 35th Goya Awards. Cajías became the first woman to win the Cinematography Goya. At the 8th Feroz Awards, the film won Best Drama Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay from a total of six nominations.

Plot
Celia, an 11-year-old girl, studies at a nuns' school in Zaragoza in 1992. Celia is a good girl: a responsible student and a considerate daughter. The arrival of a new classmate opens a small window through which Celia discovers a whole new world. Together with her new friend and some older girls, Celia enters a new stage of her life: adolescence, a period of firsts. She feels the need to experiment, try new things, and stop being a little girl, even if that entails confronting her mother and everything that once meant comfort and security.

Production
The film is an Inicia Films (Valérie Delpierre) and BTeam Prods (Alex Lafuente) production, with the participation of RTVE, TVC, Televisión de Aragón, and Movistar+, and backing from ICAA and ICEC. It boasted a €1.2 million budget.

Release
The film premiered in the 'Generation K Plus' section of the 70th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2020. Its festival run also included screenings at the Brussels International Film Festival (winning the Jury Prize in Directors' Week), and the 23rd Málaga Film Festival (winning the Golden Biznaga). Distributed by BTeam Pictures, Schoolgirls was released theatrically in Spain on 4 September 2020.

Reception
Schoolgirls holds a 90% approval rating on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes based on 10 reviews, with an average rating of 8.1/10.