52 Tuesdays

2 May 2014 | 11:23 am | Natalie Rhook

"A harsh lesson in boundaries and the impractical, utopian desire to have no secrets."

Filmed amidst grubby-chic suburban Adelaide interiors, 52 Tuesdays is a fictional story following a teenage girl's struggle to adjust as her mother embarks upon a female-to-male gender transition. The title also alludes to the film's production history, shot chronologically on each Tuesday between August 2011 to August 2012, with director and co-writer Sophie Hyde giving her cast members their scripts a week at a time in preparation for the following Tuesday's shooting schedule. Hyde's structurally adventurous directorial debut also contains a cast of mostly non-professional actors, and has won awards at both the Berlin and Sundance Film Festivals.

Whilst her mother undergoes treatment, Billie (Tilda Cobham-Hervey) moves in with her father and visits her mother only on Tuesday afternoons. However, Tuesday evenings become a time where Billie establishes her own special agenda, meeting with two of her older school friends and filming their raw, honest responses and displays to her probing, personal line of questioning. Prompted into this mindset by her mother's endeavour to lead an authentic life by undergoing gender reassignment, Billie seeks to emulate her mother's own video diary and discovers that being authentic and truthful, especially on camera, can lead to wider complexities and hypocrisies, revealing a harsh lesson in boundaries and the impractical, utopian desire to have no secrets.

In cinemas 1 May