The unnerving first trailer for Tiger Stripes has been released ahead of its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival later this month.
Directed by Amanda Nell Eu, Tiger Stripes tells the story of 12 year old Zaffan, who begins to experience unexpected and horrifying changes in her body alongside the effects of puberty.
The trailer for Tiger Stripes – available below – comes ahead of the film’s screening at the Cannes Film Festival in its Critics’ Week section later this month.
Eu said of Tiger Stripes in a statement to Variety: “This comes from my dark sense of humor. People always label young girls as little monsters. They say that teenage girls are emotional or crazy or hysterical. So, my thinking was ‘why don’t I tell a story about a young girl who actually does turn into a monster’ and let me show you what a monster is. It is a metaphor and a genre film.”
“So, it has couple of labels. But I think that’s what makes it quite fun and exciting. Hopefully we can reach a young audience that that can relate to it [immediately]. But I also believe people a bit older can relate to it and remember what it was like when they were younger or maybe even what they are going through right now in their adult life.”
“I think it’s quite universal experience where people sometimes feel like they’re being labelled as a monster. [But] let’s embrace that, celebrate it and be proud of ourselves.”
The film’s screening will mark the first time a female director from Malaysia is being selected to present their film at the iconic film festival. It also marks director Amanda Nell Eu’s debut feature film, and is the overall fourth Malaysian film to screen at Cannes in history.
Past Malaysian films that have screened at Cannes include U-Wei Saar’s Kaki Bakar (1995), Chris Chong Can Fui’s Karaoke (2009) and The Tiger Factory (2010) by Woo Ming Jin.
