Winner of the Un Certain Regard prize at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, How To Have Sex is a vibrant and authentic depiction of the agonies, ecstasies and ride-or-die glory of young female friendship, from rising British filmmaker Molly Manning Walker, who wrote and directed the film.
Three British teenage girls go on a rites-of-passage holiday, drinking, clubbing and hooking up in what should be the best summer of their lives. As they dance their way across the sun-drenched streets of Malia, they find themselves navigating the complexities of sex, consent and self-discovery. Captured with luminous visuals and a pitch-perfect soundtrack, Manning Walker’s directorial debut paints a painfully familiar portrait of young adulthood, and how first sexual experiences should – or shouldn’t – play out.
How To Have Sex stars Screen Stars of Tomorrow 2023 Mia McKenna-Bruce (Persuasion, Kindling) and BAFTA-nominated Samuel Bottomley (Somewhere Boy, Ladhood), alongside Lara Peake (Mood, Brave New World), Shaun Thomas (Ali & Ava, The Long Shadow), and newcomers Enva Lewis and Laura Ambler.
Screen Star of Tomorrow 2021 Molly Manning Walker trained at NFTS in England and holds an MA in Cinematography. Her previous work as a cinematographer includes shooting Charlotte Regan’s debut feature Scrapper and the multi-BAFTA-nominated Mood. Molly’s directing debut was the short film Good Thanks, You?, which premiered at the 59th edition of Semaine De la Critique Cannes and went on to play at many festivals. Molly also won the Next Step prize at Cannes 2022 for the How to Have Sex script.
The film is produced by Wild Swim’s Ivana MacKinnon (Beast, Bring Them Down) and Emily Leo (Under the Shadow, Nocebo), alongside Heretic’s Konstantinos Kontovrakis (Triangle of Sadness). Film4 and BFI, awarding National Lottery funding, developed the project and financed the production, alongside mk2 Films. Executive producers are Farhana Bhula and Ben Coren for Film4, Kristin Irving for the BFI, Nathanaël Karmitz and Fionnuala Jamison for mk2 Films, Giorgos Karnavas for Heretic, and Phil Hunt and Compton Ross for Head Gear.
