Synopsis

London, 1962. Two teenage girls Ginger and Rosa are inseparable they play truant together, discuss religion, politics and hairstyles, and dream of lives bigger than their mothers\' frustrated domesticity. But, as the Cold War meets the sexual revolution, and the threat of nuclear holocaust escalates, the lifelong friendship of the two girls is shattered - by the clash of desire and the determination to survive.

Program Note
Sally POTTER, the British director famous for her feminist streak, returns with another film full of strong characters and feminist issues. She made her directorial debut with Thriller, and earned her reputation as a major woman director of the 1970s through the deconstruction of the patriarchal structure of cinema in Orlando, a film adaptation of Virginia WOOLF’s novel of the same title. Since then, POTTER has put forward feminist perspectives by combining avant-garde and narrative films. Just like in Orlando, where the narrative is told from the perspective of a strong female character, in Ginger & Rosa the camera follows the perspective of the teenage girl Ginger, thereby creating a deep sense of emotional complicity. Based on POTTER’s own experience of the period, Ginger & Rosa is set in the early 1960s, just before the eruption of the feminist movement and the political revolution of 1968. The film deals with the political experimentation and the sexual liberation of two girls who grow up under leftist parents, as well as the friendship between them. Ginger’s father, Roland, is a liberalist who takes no responsibility in the name of ‘freedom’, and her mother, Natalie, is deeply unhappy with her life. While Ginger is fearful of an apocalypse, Rosa seeks to save those close to her rather than concerning herself with distant political issues. The film connects the fear of nuclear weapons in the Cold War system and the attendant political situation to more personal crises such as the break-up of nuclear families, individual traumas, and the absence of relational responsibility and morality. Hollywood actress Elle FANNING plays the idealistic Rosa, who grows to become a feminist through a political awakening. Alice ENGLERT, the daughter of Jane CAMPION, plays Ginger’s best friend Rosa, who resolutely carries out some liberal experiments. Annette BENING stars as Ginger’s feminist role model. From the daughter who wishes to break away from the kind of life her mother has led and the deep solidarity between the two girls, we catch a glimpse of the emotional basis that sparked the second generation of feminism in the 1960s. To the girls who interact so passionately with the world as well as with each other, the world is something remarkably fragile that they must somehow hold on to. The camera follows the glances of the girls who secretly sneak looks at each other. The world that they see through each other’s eyes is place of thrilling freedom as well as plaintive suffering. And yet it is painfully beautiful. [HONG So-in]