Cannes One To Watch: ‘How To Have Sex’ Director Molly Manning Walker

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They say you always remember the first time, but Molly Manning Walker’s Cannes debut, in the shorts section of Directors’ Fortnight, only happened in theory, after the pandemic closed down the festival. “It’s weird but I’ve never seen a film I’ve made in a cinema,” she says. “Both of my other shorts came out in the pandemic, then Good Thanks, You?

premiered at Cannes, but only virtually, which was heartbreaking. So, it will be great to be at Cannes and experience it in full force.” Happily, not only is Walker back, she’s in Un Certain Regard no less with her first feature, How to Have Sex? “It follows a group of teenage girls during a rite-of-passage, post-exam holiday in a party town in the Mediterranean,” she explains. “It looks at how we learn to have sex through the pressure of friendship, toxic masculinity and societal expectations.

It’s a ride through the highs and lows of intimate female friendship.” As you might expect, the story is drawn from the filmmaker’s own experiences. “As a teenager I enjoyed many party holidays but I hadn’t thought about the impact it had had on my perception of sex,” she explains. “I have a very distinct memory of a bar crawl where I saw a blowjob on stage.

I wanted to talk about how we are introduced to sex. Especially people who have experienced these clubbing holidays. Most women I know have experienced some form of sexual assault, and I think this needs to be talked about. “There is obviously a gap in education around the topic of consent.