Synopsis
With the help of a sketch, a little girl illustrates how space and games are divided up during recess at school, especially between boys and girls, and explains how this is a daily problem for her. Despite her various attempts to change things, she cannot find a solution—especially since the issue remains invisible to others, children and adults alike, who don’t seem to be concerned. What emerges is the subtlety of a genuine geopolitics of public space, played out on the scale of a schoolyard.
A word from Tënk
Confined to a fixed frame, the little girl speaking here illustrates both the power and the limits of speech. Words allow her to analyze the predominantly male occupation of space and to decipher why girls struggle to claim it. But soon, the pencil lines she uses to sketch this geography cover her sheet of paper, giving way to angry scribbles. Gender inequality is presented as something obvious from early childhood. The only question that remains is: how can one make oneself heard?
Olivia Cooper-Hadjian
Member of the Cinéma du Réel Selection Committee,
Critic for Les Cahiers du Cinéma
