Eliza Scanlen is earning praise for her leading performance in another woman director’s feature debut. She took home an Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) Award for Shannon Murphy’s “Babyteeth” a few years back, and now she’s getting glowing reviews for “The Starling Girl,” Laurel Parmet’s first feature. Deadline reports that Bleecker Street has nabbed North American rights to the coming-of-age drama following its world premiere at Sundance Film Festival last month. A theatrical release is planned for later this year.
Penned by Parmet, “The Starling Girl” tells the story of 17-year-old Jem Starling (Eliza Scanlen), “who struggles to define her place within her fundamentalist Christian community in