Director Paloma Schneideman explores issues of consent and queerness in coming-of-age film set in New Zealand

In Big Girls Don’t Cry, the New Zealand coming-of-age film quietly devastating film festivals, there is a scene on a moonlit beach. It features the main character, Sid, played by Ani Palmer, and one of the cool older city boys who has come to the small, golden-sand town of Ōmaha for the summer. It is a deeply relatable, deeply uncomfortable watch; reliving the teenage negotiation – or not – of consent feels unsettling and validating.

“Yeah, an 18-year-old at the screening last night said, ‘I feel so seen and exposed,” director and writer Paloma Schneideman, 34, says. “I was like, whoa, that’s quite an astute way to think about it. One is cathartic and healing, and the other is quite confronting.”