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. 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.
"First-time filmmaker Molly Manning Walker taps into all the senses she can: blasting the eyes with neon, moving between the deafening booms of nightclubs and the sleepy silence of the morning after… As enthralling as it is important, HOW TO HAVE SEX neatly depicts the joy and pain of teenage girlhood.” —Sophie Butcher, Empire “Described by its director as loosely autobiographical, HOW TO HAVE SEX is built around a subtle but devastating rug-pull that exposes the culture of sex and consent in the same way F. Scott Fitzgerald put the Jazz Age on blast in The Great Gatsby…. It’s an ordinary story that feels so powerful because Walker and her talented, young cast know exactly how to tell it, down to each micro-expression.” —Clarisse Loughrey, Independent (UK) “Walker’s handling of the film’s tonal range is remarkably assured: the picture is skittish, spirited and very funny, and at the same time troubling and bruisingly sad.” —Wendy Ide, Guardian
