They come from Tanzania, northern Iraq, Chile, Serbia, England and South Korea. They speak Swahili, Kurmanji, Spanish, Serbian, English and Korean. And yet Nancy, Sheelan, Selenna, Nina, Paige and Sinai are basically telling the same story: the story of young women growing up in a world that wants to have a say in their bodies, their future and their identity, and yet they say no anyway.
“Girls Don’t Cry” will be shown in German cinemas from April 30, 2026. A documentary that shocks, encourages and continues to have an impact long after the credits have rolled.
When courage becomes a survival strategy
Nancy fled her home in Tanzania, not from war, but from a knife. Female genital mutilation, which is officially punishable in Tanzania but still practised, was to be carried out on her. Today she lives in a shelter run by the organization “Hope for Girls and Women Tanzania”. She knows that her escape has destroyed her family’s reputation in the village. And she made this decision anyway.
Sheelan’s story takes us from the horrors of IS to the safety of Tübingen and back to uncertainty, as the word “remigration” suddenly haunts Germany. During filming, the Yezidi girl who escaped the genocide experiences something that can hardly be put into words: her eldest sister returns after eight years in IS captivity. Joy and trauma, side by side, in a single moment.
What director Sigrid Klausmann shows here is no misery porn, no aesthetics of consternation. It is radical closeness, born of genuine trust.
Beauty as a battlefield
In South Korea, society expects girls to undergo surgery. Not as a free decision, but as a ticket to a career and private life. Sinai refuses to play this game. Instead of going under the knife, she stands in the BMX pipe every day and prepares for the world championships. She never received a conventional school education. Instead, she received something that no school can teach: the ability to see her own body as a strength, not a flaw.
Paige from England is 16 and a mother. At the last minute she decided against an abortion, unlike her best friend who did not go down the same path. The movie does not judge. It observes. And it is this restraint that gets under your skin.
Home, deportation, identity: what remains when everything falls away
Nina lives in a Roma settlement in Novi Sad. She was deported from Germany. The film gives an idea of what this means: lost educational opportunities, destroyed sense of belonging, social invisibility. And yet, or perhaps precisely because of this, Nina has a clear goal. She wants an independent life. This sentence sounds simple. In Nina’s mouth, it is revolutionary.
Selenna from Chile was born in the body of a boy. At the age of four, she apologized to her mother for being a girl. Today, she is an activist fighting for the rights of transgender people. Her story is an invitation to rethink the concept of “being a girl”.
A movie that doesn’t explain, but shows
“Girls Don’t Cry” is the work of a filmmaker who knows when to hold the camera steady. Sigrid Klausmann, who concludes her career as a documentary filmmaker with this film, dedicated it to her first granddaughter. You can feel this personal urgency in every shot.
The FBW jury awarded the film the highest rating of “particularly valuable”, not because of its message, but because of its attitude. Because it does not portray the girls as victims, but shows them for what they are: active subjects of their own lives.
The film won the “Best Documentary” award at the Interrobang Film Festival in Iowa. At the Ojo de Pescado Festival in Valparaíso, it opened the program as the opening film. The international response is clear: these stories touch people everywhere.
What this movie does to us
A teacher from Hildesheim wrote after a school screening: “Her pupils explained to the boys afterwards why the film also concerned them. That is exactly what good documentary film can do, it opens up spaces in which conversations can take place that would not have happened before.
At a time when the achievements of women’s rights are coming under pressure worldwide, “Girls Don’t Cry” is neither a nostalgic look back nor a naïve slogan of perseverance. It is a precise, tender and courageous look at what young women achieve every day, often without applause, often against resistance, almost always without choice.
And perhaps that is the most important insight of this movie: girls don’t cry because they are weak. They don’t cry because they lack strength. They sometimes cry and then get up and move on.
“Girls Don’t Cry” opens in German cinemas on April 30, 2026. Further information: girlsdontcry.org
To the trailer of Girls Don’t Cry
About the author
Kinga Bartczak advises, coaches and writes on female empowerment, new work culture, organizational development, systemic coaching and personal branding. She is also the managing director of UnternehmerRebellen GmbH and publisher of the FemalExperts magazine .
