Two teenage girls long to escape their bleak industrial hometown in Lithuania and form a close bond at a sinister modeling school. There, they’re promised a better life—but only if they’re willing to mutilate their bodies in increasingly extreme ways.
In the crumbling industrial outskirts of Kaunas, Lithuania, 13-year-old Marija (Vesta Matulytė) is relentlessly bullied because of her limp. After being abandoned by her indifferent mother and sent to live with her grandmother, Marija is recruited—alongside the rebellious Kristina (Ieva Rupeikaitė)—by one of the many shady Lithuanian modeling schools that promise slim young girls from hopeless places an escape route to a brighter future.
Of course, everything must be paid for in advance: photos, training, flights abroad—but above all, the girls must stay thin. Kristina has read about one way to achieve that: by swallowing a tapeworm. Now allies, the two girls are prepared to do anything to their bodies to break free from their fate.
Toxic won the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival, and also took home the award for Best Debut.