The three lead players carry the film. Kesav Binoy Kiron adds the right dollop of barely-there smarm to his charm, and when Panigrahi, winsome and knowing, Kusruti, worn and blow-your-socks-off-sexy, are facing off, you can’t take your eyes off either.

[Shuchi Talati] wonderfully crafts a film that dwells on girlhood, the mother-daughter relationship and the quiet, personal moments – like dancing alone to a song – when girls can be themselves, unfettered by expectations, rules and gendered power games.

It’s typical of the deadpan realism that the India-born and New York-based film-maker Shuchi Talati brings to a movie that sits neatly between Diary of a Teenage Girl and Imitation of Life, and yet is also culturally and painfully specific.

Despite the very specific geographical context of the film, the themes Girls Will Be Girls touches on are very much universal, delving into the politics of gender that will seem familiar to many of us in the audience