
Set in the cutthroat, boy-dominated world of high school debate where tomorrow’s leaders are groomed, GIRL TALK tells the timely story of five girls on a diverse, top-ranked Massachusetts high school debate team as they strive to become the best debaters in the United States on their own terms.
NATIONAL BROADCAST PREMIERE | MARCH 6, 2023

- GIRL TALK will be featured as a part of the Local, USA series on WORLD Channel on March 6th at 8 p.m. ET and March 7th at 9 a.m. ET.
- The documentary will also be available for 90 days on the WORLD website.
- Starting March 17th, GIRL TALK will be streaming on Amazon Prime PBS Documentaries channel.
- For those in the Boston area, there will be encore broadcasts on GBH on March 16th at 9 p.m. on GBH 2 and March 20th at 12 p.m. on GBH 44.
OFFICIAL TRAILER
LUCIA LYNN SMALL – 1963-2022

It is with profound sadness we share the news that Lucia Small lost her battle with pancreatic cancer on Saturday, November 19, 2022. She passed peacefully with dear friends and family by her side, and she lived fully to the last minute.
As an unflinching feminist and champion of women and girls, making GIRL TALK fulfilled a lifelong dream of Lucia’s to focus on the power of the female voice. As she told Ms. Magazine last June, “It has been my struggle, my whole life, trying to find a voice that I felt comfortable with—that wasn’t alienating, but at the same time, wasn’t apologetic. I’m still navigating that. But GIRL TALK was a way for me to look at—when do girls, young women speak up or begin to shut down?” It’s easy to imagine that completing this film fortified Lucia to fight her terminal diagnosis, and along the way she embodied so much love, kindness and ferocity of spirit.
We are all so grateful Lucia was able to see the film to completion, participate in many screenings on the east and west coasts, and engage with audiences who loved GIRL TALK, including the honor of winning the Audience Choice Award at the Boston Independent Film Festival in May. Lucia was also able to catch the live broadcast premiere of GIRL TALK on GBH just weeks before she passed. Realizing another lifelong dream, we just finalized an agreement for the film to broadcast nationally on PBS World in 2023.
Lucia leaves behind an incredibly dedicated group of friends and so many admirers in the film community.
“A very good case could be made for Lucia being the most important documentarian in New England in the last twenty years, certainly challenging the province of Frederick Wiseman, Errol Morris, and other male filmmakers. All four of her feature documentaries hit the bullseye,” says film critic Gerald Peary. Read more about Lucia’s career and accomplishments in these moving tributes in her Boston Globe obituary and from film critics Peter Keough and Ty Burr.
Lucia Small, who brought women’s and girls’ voices to forefront in documentaries, dies at 59
Arts Remembrance: Lucia Small, 1963-2022
Lucia Small 1963-2022 ––Farewell to a beloved Boston filmmaker whose work deserves a wider audience.
Upcoming events
Arts Emerson
March 24 @ 7:00 pm PDTCollegiate School – April 4, 2023
April 4 @ 5:00 pm PDTDenver Film | Women+Film Festival
April 16 @ 12:00 pm PDT