Erin’s Guide To Kissing Girls is an adorable, poignant, and oh-so-relatable coming-of-age story, that will touch your heart and remind you of the excitement and trepidation that comes with being a baby gay.
The film follows middle-schooler Erin (Elliot Stocking), the only out person in her class, who finds herself falling for the new girl in school, ex-child star Sydni (Rosali Annikie). Erin becomes convinced that she has to ask her to the school dance (and get her first kiss in the process). This is complicated by Erin’s friendship with fellow comic nerd and track star Liz (Jesyca Gu), who begins to feel like she’s being left behind, and their friendship suffers as a result.
The film is heading to VOD on Friday, but you won’t have to wait until then to get a sneak peek. Watch this exclusive clip of Erin meeting, well, seeing Sydni for the first time, and an epic crush is born.
Erin’s Guide To Kissing Girls was written by queer filmmaker Julianna Notten, who wrote it as a love letter to their younger self. “Growing up, I was exposed to the usual assortment of girl-meets-boy narratives. It was an all too familiar story, and began to feel like the only one,” says Notten. “Moreover, coming-of-age films with queer characters were rooted in tragedy or centered around a stereotypical portrayal of coming out. The inspiration for this film was born out of the frustration I felt with this fact. I wanted to create a character who was confident in her sexuality without sensationalizing it, whose problems reached beyond the fact that she was attracted to other girls.”
Courtesy of Quiver Distribution
Notten hopes to offer a fuller, more complex portrayal with the film, as it’s all too common for “queer” stories to be pigeonholed, into just being about queerness. “Many queer people around the world still face a wide range of difficulties, regardless of their age, and while Erin does face isolation and misunderstanding from her classmates for being the only out person in her class, I ultimately wanted Erin to be free to be herself and accepted by the people in her life she cares about most,” Notten explains. “When queer women tell their own stories on screen, everyone stands to benefit.”
