Tyler-Marie Evans’ debut feature, “Pretty Babies”, premieres in competition at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, following two traumatised friends whose search for a better life leads them into sex work. Evans says the film aims to portray sex work and female friendship from an intimate perspective, resisting familiar narratives that frame women’s choices as simply tragic or liberating. The director wants to show the humanity, emotional conflict and social judgement experienced by women beyond reductive stereotypes.

The film stars Emily Alyn Lind and Sadie Stanley as Marie and Luna, alongside Ashley Benson and Madelaine Petsch as another pair whose relationship echoes the central friendship’s tensions. Evans drew on interviews with women involved in sex work and on the life of Andy Warhol muse Edie Sedgwick, particularly in shaping Luna without making her a villain. Produced with involvement from Killer Films’ Christine Vachon, Jordan Wagner and Benson, the film also uses Old Hollywood imagery to explore identity, sexuality and disconnection from the body.