Tomboy

The Tomboy extras are short but give a solid insight into director Celia Sciamma's motivations for making the film and her technique. Both extras are chiefly interviews with her, although the 'making of' features considerably more footage from the set. Sciamma talks about locking in to the "rhythm of childhood" and her desire to "experiment" with this, her second film. She also talks about the pleasures of the film's ambiguity and her initial fears re casting.

That the film sprang out of just three weeks of writing, three weeks of casting and 20 days of filming makes it all the more remarkable. Sciamma is clearly a pragmatist and cleverly chose to cast all the pals of her central actress Zoé Héran, so that the relationships would be easily created. She also has some interesting things to say about capturing kids on film, treading the fine line between authority and a game and avoiding the word "cut" when repeating a scene, which she says is like a "sanction for kids". Héran's screentest is also an eye-opening inclusion with the long hair she sported at the time a far cry from her androgynous look in the final film.

Sciamma is a warm and engaging presence onscreen and when she talks of her joy at some many children getting the chance to see her film and enjoy it through a French schools' programme, you share her pleasure. The package is rounded out by trailers - I'd avoid the one for the film itself as, as Sciamma puts it herself, much of the joy of the film comes not from wondering 'how' not 'if' she will be found out.