Not an expert on teenage girlhood, being, well, a boy, All This Panic, screened at Uncontaminated Oslo yesterday, gave me a pretty good idea of what it’s all about. The documentary, directed by Jenny Gage, alongside director of photography Tom Betterton, follows a pair of sisters Ginger and Dusty, and their group of friends over a three-year period in Brooklyn, New York, capturing that moment between childhood and adulthood through boys, booze, weed and college in the process. Or, because, well what says it better than a nice official blurb… “All this Panic follows as the group of teenagers navigate high school politics and growing up in front of the lens. The teens are disarmingly eloquent and surprisingly candid; they let us in to witness the most confusing, painful, and exciting time of their lives. As the scope of their worlds expands beyond the city’s boundaries and their family homes, their paths diverge.” And it was enough, in a moment of weakness, to invoke an emotional reaction even from us cold-hearted sorts. Don’t tell anyone. But do try and see this film (which also showed at the BFI festival in London), because it’s very very good. Although it does come with the adding feeling of: wow I’m fucking old.
