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Foreplays is a column that explores under-known short films by renowned directors. Jane Campion's A Girl's Own Story (1984) is free to watch below. In consecutive close-ups, the inscrutable faces of three girls appear briefly on screen, as we hear the tune from a music box. Cut to the page of a book with the illustration of a male body, headless but with an erect penis. The girls’ hands gather around the male figure. One finger starts gliding across the drawing, carefully following the anatomical lines. The camera moves, trailing the finger that ends up underlining a sentence at the bottom of the page: “This sight might shock young girls.” The music ceases, hysterical female screams take over. Superimposed onto the black background, in an overwrought, baroque typography, the film’s title appears. This is the start of A Girl’s Own Story (1984), the fourth short directed by Jane Campion...