Chennai International Film Festival

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Toxic (Akiplesa)

Lithuania | 2024 | 99 mins | Lithuania

Abandoned by her mother, 13-year-old Maria is forced to live with her grandmother in a bleak industrial town. During a violent clash on the street, Maria meets Kristina,a girl of the same age who is striving to become a fashion model. Trying to get closer to her, Maria enrolls in a mysterious modeling school, where the girls are preparing for the biggest casting event in the region. Her ambiguous relationship with Kristina and the intense, cult-like environment of the modeling school forceMaria on a quest to discover her own identity.

Director
Image description
Saulė Bliuvaitė (born 1994) is a Lithuanian film director and screenwriter. For her feature film debut Toxic (2024), she won the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival.Bliuvaitė’s international breakthrough was her feature film debut Toxic (2024). The drama is about two 13-year-old girls who want to escape their desolate and hopeless Lithuanian hometown. To do so, they push their bodies to the limit in a modeling school. The screenplay for the film is based on Bliuvaitė’s own experiences as a teenager.
Cast & Crew

Director – Mahdi Fleifel
Cinematography – Thodoris Mihopoulos
Editor – Halim Sabbah
Music – Nadah El Shazly
Producer – Geoff Arbourne, Mahdi Fleifel
Cast – Mahmood Bakri, Aram Sabbagh, Mohammad Alsurafa, Angeliki Papoulia