I Like Girls
2016 · 8m · Canada
Directed by Diane Obomsawin
Genres: animation, coming-of-age, LGBTQ+
Tones: humorous, sensual, tender
Four women recount their first loves and early attractions to other women, sharing intimate, funny stories of infatuation, erotic discovery and emerging self-awareness.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Everyone expects a queer coming-of-age story to be either didactic or achingly sincere, so Obomsawin just... lets her subjects be funny and horny and confused at once, which somehow feels like the most subversive move possible.
The film's formal restraint—letting animation and voiceover carry the weight without sentimentalizing—places it squarely in the lineage of intimate documentary animation, executed with the kind of considered pacing that respects both the form and the vulnerability of testimony.
What makes this work is the decision to let the animation *mirror* rather than enhance the stories: simple, direct, occasionally awkward drawings that trust the narration to do the lifting, and in that restraint, suddenly every detail of a first touch or a stolen glance lands with absolute clarity.