Zafreen Zairizal, Deena Ezral, Piqa, Shaheizy Sam
Puberty is a nightmare in Tiger Stripes, a spiky, exuberant supernatural body horror capturing the drama of girlhood, and the directorial debut of Amanda Nell Eu. The first Malaysian film to win the Critics’ Week Prize at Cannes, it’s also Malaysia’s entry for Best International Feature at the 2024 Oscars (though audiences in Malaysia itself have thus far only been able to see a censored version).
It sees lively, cheeky 12-year-old Zaffan (Zafreen Zairizal) – the natural leader in her friend group, and the first among them to hit puberty – discover a terrifying secret about her body. Ostracised by her peers and her village, Zaffan fights back, learning that to be free she must embrace the body she fears and emerging as a strong, proud young woman.
Intelligent, gruesome and funny, using tropes and monsters from Southeast Asian folklore to symbolise a particularly violent transition to adulthood and the (perceived) horror of teenage non-conformity, Tiger Stripes is a fierce, female-centred coming-of-age drama and indisputably the work of a bold new talent.
