Blue My Mind

Mia, fifteen, arrives at a new school and joins the toughest girls in the class to be accepted. At the same time unexplained changes begin in her body: her toes are fusing, she craves sea salt strangely, and she eats the fish from the aquarium raw. In her first film Lisa Brühlmann ties the coming-of-age story directly to bodily transformation, and the mermaid metaphor here is not romantic but frightening and irreversible. The story trusts neither her mother nor the doctor; Mia can get help from nobody about her own body. Luna Wedler leads. It was named film of the year in Switzerland and opened Brühlmann's career. Who it is for: viewers who like adolescence told as horror of the body. Who it is not for: anyone troubled by sex, drug use and scenes of physical transformation.