Capturing Teenage Girlhood in All Its Awkward Glory

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Capturing Teenage Girlhood in All Its Awkward Glory

Jenny Gage's documentary 'All This Panic' follows a group of New York schoolgirls as they come of age in the city. We talk to Gage and one of its stars.

All This Panic is a documentary about teenagers, but not as we know them: There are no worries over underage sexting, no Snapchat streaks, no teen orgies, and little to no parental handwringing. (The movie's biggest arguments between parent and child revolve around prosaic concerns like grocery shopping and looking for a job.)

Filmed over three years, this lyrical and candid portrait of girlhood follows a group of seven high schoolers as they grow up in New York. The usual hallmarks of a coming of age film, like first kisses or Prom, are either alluded to offscreen or not depicted at all. What the movie does show is lots of talk—teenage girls talking about coming out, mental health, school, and relationships—with the kind of frank honesty and adolescent passion that anybody who was once a 16-year-old will recognize.

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We talked to director Jenny Gage, and one of the stars of the film, Olivia Cucinotta, who is now 21.

**Read more: A *Teen* Witch's Guide to Staying Alive**

BROADLY: A lot of the film is just the girls vocalizing what they're thinking. How difficult was it for them to open up like that on camera?
J enny Gage: Time was in our favor. We would revisit questions or themes and some things that they weren't ready to open up with in year one. But year three, they were—and it would go in waves. Sometimes Olivia would be like I'm ready to open up about this and Ginger would be going through something where she felt she wasn't ready. I don't think that if we did this in nine months, we would have gotten the same results.
Olivia Cucinotta: I think we all loved each other, to start. That was clever, finding friends that have chemistry and trust in each other to begin with. I think so much of the movie, so much of what happens between us, so much of it is in body language and looks and tone of voice. That's the way that very close friends communicate.

Dusty and Delia. Photo by Tom Betterton

Were there things that you definitely thought were going into the film that didn't make it?

Gage: We weren't going for the classic moments of coming of age. For sure there were parties and first kisses, but we really wanted it to be in their heads—what are they thinking about, what are they talking about? We wanted to stay away from prom. Although I would have like to have gone.
Cucinotta: Everyone went to prom. I was the only one who had a date for prom.
Gage: I did feel [feel this] less with Olivia, but definitely more with all the girls—because we've all seen those movies so many times—they occasionally had preconceived notions of what we wanted to hear. But it ended up being the inbetween moments that were the most compelling.

Olivia, the film documents you coming out—is it weird that such a pivotal moment of your life has been captured on camera?
Cucinotta: I don't think of it so much as captured on camera, but as a conversation that I really needed to have [that] was happening around people that I trusted. When I was a teenager, Jenny and Tom were the first adults who talked to me like I was also an adult and wanted to hear what I wanted to say. The fact that Jenny and Tom and a very dear dear friend of mine, Lena, who I've been friends with since we were nerds in sixth grade, were some of the first people I talked about this with—it kind of makes sense to me. I feel lucky to be able to share that moment with other people who are maybe looking for that own moment in their own lives.

Read the rest at Broadly.