Freshly minted with the coveted Locarno Golden Leopard, Toxic cements this Eastern European debut director as an exciting new voice in cinema.

An unflinching, poetic portrait of Lithuanian girlhood, the bonds of female adolescence and the desire to escape.

Sent to live with her grandmother in a bleak, industrial town, statuesque 13-year-old, Marija (Vesta Matulytė), immediately stands apart from the town’s other teenagers. She has no friends, dresses in a Marilyn Manson t-shirt and walks with a limp. After Marija has a pair of jeans stolen by resident teen hustler, Kristina (Ieva Rupeikaitė), she confronts the thief and the two girls form a new, close friendship. Following in Kristina’s stead, Marija enrols in a local modelling school, where girls push themselves to toxic, physical extremes in their hopes of getting out of the town.

Winner of this year’s Golden Leopard prize at the Locarno Film Festival, Toxic combines social realism with a unique visual style and a keen attentiveness towards the pressures of female adolescence. Based on writer/director Saulė Bliuvaitė’s own experience of growing up in an industrial environment, Toxic heralds Bliuvaitė as a bold new talent in Eastern European cinema.