Filmed over the course of a year, once a week, every week, only on Tuesdays, 52 TUESDAYS follows 16-year-old Billie’s reluctant path to independence – accelerated when her mother reveals plans for gender transition and their time together becomes limited to Tuesday afternoons.
Winner of the World Cinema Dramatic Directing Award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, and the Crystal Bear for Best Film from the youth Jury at the Berlin Film Festival, Sophie Hyde’s directorial debut is a one-of-a-kind film.
The filmmakers set themselves the rule that they could only shoot on Tuesdays up until midnight and only consecutively, so whatever filmed on that day is what happens in the story on that day. Led by the very real performances of the collaborators playing the mother, James (Del Herbert-Jane) and teenage daughter Billie (Tilda Cobham-Hervey), the actors, all non-professional, were given the script one week at a time and only given the scenes that they were in.
These unique filmmaking rules bring a rare authenticity to this emotionally charged story of desire, responsibility and transformation.