Exchange & Mart

There are plenty of obscure rituals at a conservative boarding school for girls in Scotland. The seclusion from the world of boys makes these teenagers obsessed with doing it for the first time. The girls’ longing for love and sex makes it hard for them to sleep at night. Fifteen-year-old Reg may not yet have the courage to approach the young tree surgeon she spies on from her window, but in her mind it’s all seething upheaval.
A strict self-defence tutor has the task of teaching the girls how to protect themselves from male assaults. As part of a training exercise he attacks Reg on a lonely path in the forest. Her reaction is not quite what he expected.
In their fictitious coming-of-age miniature, former documentary filmmakers Cara Connolly and Martin Clark lace scenic realism with bizarre details. With deadpan humour, the film debunks the idea held by many adults that the development of adolescents can be steered in controllable ways.