🎬First Girl I Loved 🇺🇸🏳️‍🌈

Anne (Dylan Gelula) is a sharp, fiercely observant, and somewhat geeky 17-year-old high school student who spends her time working on the school yearbook committee. Her predictable social orbit changes dramatically when she is assigned to photograph Sasha (Brianna Hildebrand), the beautiful, universally popular star of the girls' varsity softball team. During a brief interview session, an immediate, unspoken spark flies between the two girls from completely different social tiers.

As Anne and Sasha begin spending time together outside of school, an intense, intimate emotional and physical romance develops behind closed doors.

However, their secret connection is quickly threatened by the painful realities of high school politics and social expectations. Complications peak when Anne confides her newly discovered feelings to her lifelong best friend, Clifton (Mateo Arias). Harboring a deep, unrequited crush on Anne himself, a rejected Clifton lets his jealousy morph into betrayal. He actively begins manipulating the situation, setting off a delicate, heart-wrenching chain reaction of rumors, social panic, and digital exposure that forces both Anne and Sasha to confront exactly who they are and how much they are willing to risk for their first real love.

💡 Did You Know? 🧠
Sundance Triumph: The film made a massive splash at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the prestigious NEXT Audience Award, instantly launching it into the spotlight as a critical darling of the year.

Familiar Indie Faces: Lead actress Dylan Gelula gained widespread recognition around this time for her hilarious role as Xanthippe Voorhees in Netflix’s Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, proving her incredible dramatic range with her raw performance as Anne. Co-star Brianna Hildebrand was also experiencing a breakout year, heavily known as Negasonic Teenage Warhead in Deadpool (2016).

An Authentic Narrative Eye: Director Kerem Sanga intentionally shot the film with a grounded, naturalistic color palette and relied heavily on realistic modern text messaging and digital interactions to perfectly preserve the genuine, un-Hollywood-ized pulse of Gen-Z youth communication.

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