Volkskrantdag: Rocks

British-Nigerian Shola aka ‘Rocks’ is 15. The teachers at school say she should start thinking about her future, but the present seems to demand all her energy and attention. Her father died and her mother has suddenly left ‘to clear her mind’. It’s not the first time Rocks and her kid brother Emmanuel have had to get by on their own. Luckily though, Rocks is far from alone: she has her friends.

Rocks is a lively portrait of a group of teenage girls from a variety of backgrounds in East London. Sarah Gavron (Suffragette, Brick Lane) surrounded herself with talented female crew members including Hélène Louvart, whose camerawork graced Alice Rohrwacher’s Lazzaro Felice, and writers Theresa Ikoko and Claire Wilson, who collaborated intensively with the young leads and used their input for the screenplay. A grim, yet also often joyous, hopeful story about growing up in a metropolis.