"Wide awake to the wonder, terror and giddy confusion of being a 14-year-old adolescent in 1970s Australia, Rosemary Myers' Girl Asleep is a strange, savvy, big-hearted teen adventure … unquestionably unique." – Variety

Winner of the Adelaide Film Festival Audience Award for Most Popular Feature, and the Seattle Film Festival's Grand Prix, Girl Asleep is the sparkling filmmaking debut of Windmill Theatre artistic director Rosemary Myers. Adapted from Windmill's acclaimed 2014 stage production of the same name, it's a wonderfully eccentric modern fairytale of female adolescence.

Days before her 15th birthday, Greta Driscoll (a remarkable Bethany Whitmore) transfers to a new school. As if that isn't bad enough, her parents not only decide to throw her a party, they invite all her new classmates – including new best friend Elliot and the trio of mean girls determined to make her life a misery. Escaping to her bedroom, Greta falls asleep and slips down the rabbit hole into a subconscious forest full of absurd, oddly familiar and terrifying visions. Can she find her way back to herself?

Scripted by original playwright Matthew Whittet (who also stars as Greta's dad) and stylistically lensed by cinematographer Andrew Commis (The Daughter, MIFF 2015), Girl Asleep is a bold and potently comic journey into the teenage mind.

"Girl Asleep provides one of the most visually striking manifestations of a girl's passage to maturity in recent years." – Screen International

The Age's National Entertainment Editor Matthew Burgess will introduce the session on Sunday 14 August and present The Age Critics Award to stars Bethany Whitmore and Harrison Feldman, and writer/star Matthew Whittet.