Lenore secretly pursues fashion design. With the support of her family and friends, she decides to take a chance and enter a prestigious competition. A stylish high-school comedy drama about self-acceptance and body-neutrality.

Film expert recommends

The feature-length debut of the actress and director, best known so far for the tv series Your Hair Loooks Great Today! (2018). Ayoub also contributes to organizations that support young people struggling to accept their appearance. This is also the context of Empire Waist, an unpretentious comedy-drama reminiscent of 1990s youth cinema. The attitude to one’s own body, turning previous weaknesses into weapons, finding friends in the face of bullying, changing one’s image – all this and much more is in Claire Ayoub’s plot. If you think this is some new version of Mark Waters’ Mean Girls (2004) (which, by the way, was made), nothing could be further from the truth. The film is definitely closer to the world of teenagers and their parents from the paintings of John Hughes, a classic of the time, than essentially violent Hollywood titles. The humor of Empire Waist is much more subtle, and the empathetic outlook of the director determines the value of this modest piece.

• film in English with Polish subtitles
• age: 14+