Presented in Cannes and Deauville film festival, this HBO movie explores a teenage girl’s intimacy while being exposed by a sexual harassment video. Following the line of Euphoria, of which Pippa Bianco actually directed an episode.

Share – Euphoria Generation

By Julien Lada

Reading time 2 min.

Share

Trailer

Mandy is a random 16 years old high school student : she likes hanging out, partying with friends, playing basketball and texting for hours on her phone… It is on this screen that she is able to see a video shared by her friends where she can be seen dead drunk, getting a non-consensual lap dance. She then starts a long journey to find out what happened that night, what has been done to her and how to rebuild herself under everyone’s eyes and will… The story of this project begins between The Sundance and Cannes. Not 2019’s but 2015’s, when Pipa Bianco, 25, screened the short film by the same name. Focusing on the relationship between both high school students, it pleased the Sundance’s short movies jury, then Cannes’, rewarding it with the cinéfondation prize. It gave awareness to the slutshaming and other revenge porn phenomenon inside student groups before the #MeToo movement. The hype A24 production company (Moonlight, Midsommar, 90’s…) is interested in the feature-film scenario, then HBO gets the distribution rights.

The film floats in numbness,
like a post-traumatic stress disorder

From fairytale to euphoria.

Share is released in the US at the same time as another A24/HBO production : Euphoria, Sam Levinson’s disillusioned lyric and pop trash aesthetic hit tv-show. Unsurprisingly, Pippa Bianco directed the sixth episode of this brilliant series starring young superstar Zendaya. Titled The Next Episode, it is quite close to Share, both focused on the thief of highly personal teenage girl’s video. The same dark lighting, the same pallid neon, the same way to expose the variety of American youth in a few scenes. But the main similarity is their ability to perceive the teenage unrest and the sexism, racism and classism still spreading in the youth, more and more conscious about social prejudices. Unlike Euphoria, the more reasonable Share highlights the point of view of its victim (wonderfully interpreted by Rhianne Barreto).She carries the movie, always near the camera capturing her gaze, alternating between strength and confusion.

Inspired by her own student experiences, Pippa Bianco gets deep inside the teenage spleen, far from the flashy style of Euphoria. The film floats in numbness, like a post-traumatic stress disorder, the audience witnessing the embarrassed stares, the embarrassing silences. With sobriety and sensitivity, Share avoids the feeling of misery, reversing the current negative social media rhetoric. Brilliant !

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