HOW TO HAVE SEX
Trailer
Synopsis
Three British teenagers go on vacation to celebrate their rites of passage: drinking, partying and flirting, in what should be the best summer of their lives.
Film sheet
Three British teenagers go on vacation to celebrate their rites of passage: drinking, partying and flirting, in what should be the best summer of their lives.
LANGUAGES): English
SUBTITLE: Spanish
COUNTRY(S): UK
PREMIER TYPE: National Premiere
SECTION: Global Look
DIRECTOR(S):Molly Manning Walker
PRODUCER(S): Konstantinos Kontovrakis, Emily Leo, Ivana
MacKinnon
SCREENWRITER(S):Molly Manning Walker
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Nicolas Canniccioni
EDITOR: Fin Oates
MUSIC:James Jacob
CONTACT: MUBI
CAST: Laura Ambler, Sam Bottomley, Mia McKenna-Bruce,
Lara Peake, Shaun Thomas, Enva Lewis
Director's Statement
“I was attacked when I was 16 and my short film ‘Well, Thanks, You?’ was a kind of version of what I went through. Then I started thinking about my understanding of sex and where it came from. I wanted to face it. How have we learned to have sex as a society and how does that not work for so many women? People would say, 'Surely consent has changed, and I can destroy you, sex education and things like that have driven the conversation, but a lot of the teens' opinions were depressingly unprogressive.' We would give them a script and they would say, 'That's not assault because he slept with her the night before' or 'She shouldn't wear a short dress.' There's this idea that Generation Z is like the queer, hipster version of all this. But we were quite shocked. I really wanted to talk about the gray area. For me, the law never worked and I don't think it will ever fully work for us. So it's about being more human. And that's about how we teach each other and our children, and how to appreciate each other and have good sex, as equals.”
Festivals and awards
“I was attacked when I was 16 and my short film ‘Well, Thanks, You?’ was a kind of version of what I went through. Then I started thinking about my understanding of sex and where it came from. I wanted to face it. How have we learned to have sex as a society and how does that not work for so many women? People would say, 'Surely consent has changed, and I can destroy you, sex education and things like that have driven the conversation, but a lot of the teens' opinions were depressingly unprogressive.' We would give them a script and they would say, 'That's not assault because he slept with her the night before' or 'She shouldn't wear a short dress.' There's this idea that Generation Z is like the queer, hipster version of all this. But we were quite shocked. I really wanted to talk about the gray area. For me, the law never worked and I don't think it will ever fully work for us. So it's about being more human. And that's about how we teach each other and our children, and how to appreciate each other and have good sex, as equals.”
2023: Cannes Film Festival – Un Certain Regard Section: Best Film 2023: European Film Awards (EFA). 1 prize. 2 nominations 2023: Valladolid Festival – Seminci. 1 prize. 2 nominations 2023: British Independent Film Awards (BIFA). 3 prizes. 13 nominations.
Molly Manning-Walker
Molly Manning Walker is a London-based cinematographer and NFTS graduate. She is best known for her 2020 short film Good Thanks, You? which was selected at Cannes Critics' Week. Her graduate film November 1 won bronze at the Student Academy Awards and Walker was nominated for Camerimage in 2019. Her film How to Have Sex (2023) won the Un Certain Regard award at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival and the Discovery at the 36th European Film Awards. Walker was also the director of photography for Charlotte Regan's first feature film, Scrapper.
Director's Filmography
2016 The Worlds My Oyster (Short documentary)
2020 The Forgotten C (Short)
2020 Well, thank you, you? (corto)
2023 How to have sex.