Brides, Nadia Fall's compelling debut feature, which premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, offers a powerful and empathetic look into the lives of two alienated teenage girls, Doe and Muna, who leave the UK for Syria in search of purpose and belonging. The film highlights their profound sense of cultural rejection, stemming from experiences like racist bullying and overt societal hostility, encapsulated in Muna's poignant question, "Who's gonna give a sh*t about two brown girls?".
Their journey is heavily influenced by deceptive online narratives and the false promises of extremist groups, illustrating how propaganda can slowly erode personal identity.
Inspired by real-life accounts, Brides humanizes these complex stories, challenging sensationalized media portrayals and fostering critical discussion on youth vulnerability, societal alienation, and the insidious impact of digital influence.
UK, 2025, 93 mins, Drama in English, Nadia Fall, dir.
"Bad decisions — the kind that can be, if not reversed, at least remedied — are an essential part of adolescence: lapses that teach us about our desires, our impulses, our weaknesses, our essential character, and leave us with no greater damage than a throbbing hangover or a small, smudgy tattoo. Doe and Muna, the British 15-year-olds at the center of “Brides,” either haven’t been given much slack to make the right kind of wrong choices, or haven’t permitted themselves that liberty — so when they do err, it’s in seismically reckless, potentially ruinous fashion.."~ Guy Lodge, Variety
