16-year-old Mira crashes headfirst into teenage love, India’s oppression of female sexual agency, and her own mother’s stifled desires in this stellar debut feature from Shuchi Talati that won the World Cinema Audience Award at Sundance this year.

Mira (Preeti Panigrahi) is a perfect teenage student in her final year at a strict boarding school in the Himalayas. However, her life is thrown off course by her sexual awakening, as she becomes passionately involved with a new student, recently arrived from abroad. Tensions rise when Mira brings him home and finds herself competing with her overbearing mother for his attention, creating a bizarre yet captivating love triangle.

A beautiful coming-of-age tale, Girls Will Be Girls is a sensitive and warm depiction of female awakening that we desperately need more of.

• Screenings of Girls Will Be Girls on Tue 24 Sep are part of our Cinébites deal: get 30% off any main dish in the Café & Bar with a valid cinema ticket.