Director Amanda Nell Eu feature film debut, TIGER STRIPES, focuses on the life of a rebellious and carefree twelve-year-old girl, Zaffan, as she starts to experience horrifying physical changes to her body. Struggling to maintain being normal at school, Zaffan is in denial of her inevitable changes and tries to cover herself. Zaffan’s friends however attack her, when all hysteria breaks loose — one by one teenage girls drop to the floors in fits, turning it into a spread of mass hysteria across the school. Hsoon discovers that Zaffan may be the root of their problems and steps in to perform an exorcism on her. The whole community watches, as the Medical Officer uses extreme methods to shame and physically hurt Zaffan. And like a tiger who has been dragged out of its habitat and poked because we fear it, because we don’t know it — Zaffan decides to finally reveal her true self, her wrath, rage and her beauty, to everyone. Director and screenwriter Amanda Nell joins us to talk about Eu where the story for Tiger Stripes came from, her hopes that the film will help de-mystify some fundamental truths about women and her fascination with magical realism as a powerful tool for telling nuanced stories.

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