Little Trouble Girls

A Catholic choir camp for girls forms the framework for a sensually told coming-of-age drama about power, faith, and desire. We meet teenage girls in choir uniforms amidst the daily routine of the camp, but beneath the surface, a nascent sexuality vibrates, and the soundscape blurs the line between discipline and devotion.

Through the eyes of the protagonist, Lucija, an inner turmoil and sexual awakening are conveyed. Director Urška Djukić employs an aestheticized and claustrophobic film language that communicates how desire, faith, and power intertwine in this closed environment. With a subtly unsettling choir conductor at the center, the film raises questions about institutional power and how religious and pedagogical structures shape body, desire, and conscience according to the ideals of authority.

Little Trouble Girls explores the vulnerability and desire of youth, and how this can be transformed into an obedient and "pure" expression where submission can be clothed in the language of spirituality. The film lingers on how ideology shapes the boundaries of the girls' expression and agency. With its distinctive formal language, this is a thought-provoking and intense debut about how obedience and submission can appear as choices when ideology is presented as love.