Director Hayley Kiyoko’s latest drama follows a young girl, struggling with her sexuality, who has her first female crush.
It’s a coming of age film, Kiyoko, a singer/songwriter, actress and author has spent years trying to get made.
“It was a decade of me fighting for this vision, being like, You don’t understand. This community needs this film. POC and queer people deserve to feel seen on the big screen. Finally, at the end of 2023, we got the greenlight.”
“Girls Like Girls” which is based Kiyoko’s hit single and best-selling novel of the same name, follows Coley (Maya da Costa) a shy pensive teenager who
moves to Oregon to live with her estranged father Curtis (Zach Braff). It’s there she meets Sonya (Myra Molloy) and relationship blossoms between the pair.
With the film Kiyoko has created a candid world on screen she’s told in song, music video, novel.
“I think every single person has experienced having a crush on somebody, not knowing where they’re at, whether that person likes them back, whether that person wants to be with them, and if that person is going to choose them,” Kiyoko says. “No matter your sexuality, everyone has that in common. That’s why Girls Like Girls reflects such a universal experience.
It’s a film that draws inspiration from Kiyoko’s own life and first crush.
“I wrote ‘Girls Like Girls’ with the goal of manifesting my confidence in the ability to claim my love for women. It was such a therapeutic experience. When you’re honest with yourself, that leads you to making the most authentic version of your art.”
Myra Molloy stars as Sonya and Maya Da Costa as Coley in director Hayley Kiyoko’s GIRLS LIKE GIRLS / Credit: Courtesy of Focus Features
The film which also stars Levon Hawke will be released in US theaters on June 19.
