Like the 15-year-old high schooler she plays in her new film, actor Preeti Panigrahi too came of age on the sets of Girls Will Be Girls. “I had not even kissed a boy,” says the 22-year-old. “Because of the film, I discovered how a kiss works. When I was 15, I was told to stay away from boys because they would distract me from studies,” she adds.The cautious watch society keeps on girls is at the heart of Girls Will Be Girls, director Shuchi Talati’s feature-length debut. It follows Mira (Panigrahi), an ace student smitten with her charming new classmate, Sri (Kesav Binoy Kiron), as she navigates both a strict school environment and her unpredictable mother Anila (Kani Kusruti) to steal more time with him.Produced by Richa Chadha and Claire Chassagne among others, the film picked up an audience award at the recent Sundance Film Festival in Utah, US, in the world cinema dramatic competition, while Panigrahi earned a jury prize for her performance.Always enamoured by the stage, the young actor made the theatre circle her home as a student at Delhi University’s Hindu College. She landed an audition for the part of Mira following an open call in 2022, which asked entrants to send in a short video of “what you are or were like in high school: an A-grader or a rule breaker or perhaps a funny story.” Having been the ‘head girl’, Panigrahi knew how to embody ‘head prefect’ Mira with dignity and control. She self-taped two bits and sent it to the team, in true A-grader fashion, “with a couple of variations”.
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