Ariane Labed – perhaps best known as an actress – makes her feature film directorial debut with this gothic, surreal infused coming of age drama based on Daisy Johnson’s novel Sisters. 

Premiering at Cannes in 2024 as part of the Un Certain Regard program, September Says tells the story of two sisters September and July. Born only months apart the girls are outsiders at school but share a unique bond and a private world, however, as events unfold so their world begins to change… 

Labed’s film has echoes of contemporary Greek cinema – she appeared in Lanthimos’s The Lobster and Tsangari’s Attenberg – and the gothic undertones play well throughout September Says. 

“A sophisticated, poetic, and thorny story of guilt and repression, September Says is a dark mirror of unrealised and unstable identity. Waking up to reality is unkinder when even the most twisted of fantasies are grounded in unspoken truth.” – Nadine Whitney, AWFJ.org 

Official Selection:
Cannes Film Festival
London Film Festival

Screens with the short film Parkland - Julian Hamman, Australia, 2024, 5:21