In the closed world of the Haldwell, an elite Pennsylvania boarding school, the student body is run by five factions. Seventeen-year-old Selah Summers runs the most dominant group, the Spades, with unshakable poise, as they cater to the most classic of vices and supply students with coveted, illegal alcohol and pills. Tensions between the factions escalate, and when Selah’s best friend Maxxi becomes distracted by a new love, Selah takes on a protégée, enamored sophomore Paloma, to whom she imparts her wisdom on ruling the school. But with graduation looming and Paloma proving an impressively quick study, Selah’s fears turn sinister as she grapples with losing the control by which she defines herself.
In her feature debut, writer/director Tayarisha Poe immerses us in a heightened depiction of teenage politics. This searing character study encapsulates just how intoxicating power can be for a teenage girl who acutely feels the threat of being denied it. Exciting newcomer Lovie Simone’s performance beautifully embodies both Selah’s publicly impeccable command and the internal fears and uncertainty that drive it. About the filmmaker Tayarisha Poe is a storyteller from West Philly who believes that all stories are inherently multisensory and multidimensional and thus should be told that way. She was chosen as one of the "25 new faces of independent film" by Filmmaker magazine in 2015, and in 2016 she received the Sundance Institute’s Knight Foundation Fellowship. In 2017, she was selected for the January Sundance Screenwriters Lab and the June Sundance Directors Lab. She is a 2017 Pew fellow.
