Fresh from a wildly successful run at Sundance, Big Girls Don’t Cry will have its NZ premiere as the Opening Night film at this year’s New Zealand International Film Festival, kicking off on 29 July. 

The debut feature from Auckland-based director Paloma Schneideman, Big Girls Don’t Cry is a tender coming-of-age portrait of girlhood, set in early 2000s Matakana.

The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in the World Dramatic Competition earlier this year, before joining other major global festivals including SXSW, BFI: Flare London and TIFF: New Wave. Along the way, it garnered rave reviews, with The Hollywood Reporter saying Big Girls Don’t Cry “pulses with a powerful sense of place and terrifically charged scenes of chaotic intimacy, its exceptional performances led by [Ani] Palmer, Rain Spencer and Noah Taylor.”

The film follows 14-year-old Sidney ‘Sid’ Bookman (Ani Palmer) as she’s caught between childhood and adolescence, navigating burgeoning sexual curiosity, and grappling with a desperate need for acceptance and all the clumsiness of growing up. Playing out in the era of dial-up internet and reality tv, the film weaves together themes of queer adolescence, class shame and identity, at a moment when the wider world was starting to seep into small town Aotearoa. 

New Zealand International Film Festival artistic director Paolo Bertolin says Big Girls Don’t Cry has already achieved critical acclaim at some of the world’s biggest film festivals, and will resonate with anyone who remembers the anguish and joys of adolescence. 

“We selected Big Girls Don’t Cry for our Opening Night because it stands among the world’s best films of 2026. It’s a beautifully made, uniquely New Zealand take on universal themes.”   

The film is the first feature to come from the alumni of the inaugural A Wave in the Ocean programme, a year-long intensive filmmaking course led by two-time Oscar winning New Zealand director, Dame Jane Campion (The Piano, The Power of the Dog, Top of the Lake), with co-director Philippa Campbell (Top of the Lake). Schneideman was hand-picked by Campion as one of ten emerging New Zealand filmmakers to participate in the programme.

Following its premiere at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival in Utah, USA, earlier this year, Schneideman says she is excited to bring the film back home.

“It’s special to be screening the film for Kiwi audiences, and I’m thrilled to be part of this year’s New Zealand International Film Festival. 

"I made Big Girls Don't Cry for my 14-year-old self. Not for comfort, but for catharsis. For those who still wear the scars of coming-of-age — where shame lives, and desire and danger blur. This is not the kind of film we often make in New Zealand. And that's precisely why I had to make it."

Filmed on location in Helensville, Te Henga Bethells Beach and Mangatawhiri Ōmaha, Big Girls Don’t Cry stars first-time screen actor Ani Palmer as Sid, alongside acclaimed English-Australian actor Noah Taylor (Game of Thrones, Almost Famous) as Sid's father Leo, and Rain Spencer (The Summer I Turned Pretty) as the captivating American visitor Freya.

The film was produced by Wellington-based producers Vicky Pope and Thomas Coppell, and executive producers include Dame Jane Campion and Philippa Campbell.

Big Girls Don’t Cry is screening at the New Zealand International Film Festival opening night in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland on 29 July, before a broader schedule of screenings at 10 other towns and cities across Aotearoa.