Two teenage girls in search of freedom, friendship, and belonging run away from their troubled lives with a misguided plan of traveling to Syria.

In a nuanced first feature, acclaimed theater director and playwright Nadia Fall explores the irreducible challenges of teenage girlhood through a boldly specific sociopolitical lens. Ebada Hassan and Safiyya Ingar masterfully embody Doe and Muna: girls on the cusp of adulthood looking to escape the pervasive minoritization and othering in their native U.K. by any means necessary. Through Suhayla El-Bushra’s precise, compassionate writing, the girls embark on a transformative journey entangled with diverse provocations that complicate their conceptions of identity, faith, and positionality at every scale.

Though the setting and journey hold tension and gravity, a core, universal tenderness surfaces. Brides is a gutsy, loving, and pensive coming-of-age tale — a depiction of the loyalty of friendship, teenage autonomy, and the illusion of invulnerable youth.—Cameron Asharian 

Available in person. Also available online for the public (January 30–February 2) and credentialed press and industry (January 29–February 2).