This 2025 Teddy Jury Prize winner brilliantly captures those nascent coming of age years when someone first begins to question and explore their identity.

12 year-old Anna and her Deaf mum live in a cramped flat on a Vienna council estate. When she starts secondary school it becomes clear they can’t afford the designer clothes that she thinks she needs to fit in. But she finds an ally in fellow outsider Mara, who walks to the beat of her own drum in the knowledge her trans father (Daniel Sea, The L Word) has her back. But it’s not so easy for Anna to shrug off her classmate’s taunts about her mum, as she struggles with her own feelings about her mum’s newfound romantic life.

Tackling subjects of class, queer identity, bodily autonomy, disability and social exclusion through the eyes of a 12 year-old, Marie Luise Lehner gives room for her protagonist to make mistakes and grow. There’s no rush for Anna to grow up or make decisions, as she questions whether she has a crush on a boy or just wants to be him. Instead, this is a rallying cry for the outsiders and misfits who don’t fit neatly into a box, imagining a future where no one is required to.