Saule Bliuvaite’s debut feature follows two Lithuanian teens seduced by a ‘modelling school’ promising to take them away from their tough home townLithuanian first-time director Saule Bliuvaite makes a real impression with this impressively acted and elegantly composed feature set in the tough suburbs of Kaunas where teen girls dream of escape through an international modelling career. Bliuvaite and her cinematographer Vytautas Katkus contrive striking tableaux and ambient setpieces, creating an emotional context for this drama: a world of alienation and desperate need, but also resilient humour. It’s a disturbing essay in sexuality, poverty and sexual capital which reminded me a little of Ninja Thyberg’s Pleasure and Isabella Eklöf’s Holiday in its candid, affectless evocation of the young female body, and its vulnerability to weight-loss exploitation. Bliuvaite’s style reminded me of the Austrians Ulrich Seidl and Jessica Hausner – the latter was incidentally president of the jury which gave this film top prize at last year’s Locarno film festival.Newcomer Vesta Matulyte plays Marija, a shy girl who walks with a slight limp due to a disability; she has to live with her grandma while her mum fixes her relationship problems. After being bullied at her new school, she stands up to and finally befriends a girl who had tried to steal her jeans in the swimming pool changing room. This is Kristina (Ieva Rupeikaite), and together these two respond to an ad for a “modelling school” audition which promises to send winning applicants on fashion trips to the far east and the US. However they must pay upfront for their photoshoots and