Teenage girls compete at the world’s most unique boarding academy to become professional mermaids, aspiring to dazzle audiences while swimming with sharks at the world’s grandest aquariums. Greek new wave filmmaker Konstantina Kotzamani (What Mary Didn’t Know) shows again she has a wonderful eye for lyrical and surreal images and female coming-of-age stories. It is a dreamy world of both neon lighting and other gauzy accoutrements of mermaid culture and rigorous poolside training requiring strict discipline to hold your breath for the longest time. In this immersive watery world, the students become friends but are under constant pressure to transform by finding their essential ‘mermaidness’ – a combination of a new name, hair colour and the uniqueness in the way they move through water and flick their silicon tail. Real mermaid treasure only comes when you find your own mermaid song and then your siren voice. For 17-year-old Akame that song will be Lykke Li’s ​I Followed Rivers, a shattering call for her and her crush, Coach Kotaro.