A “HollyShorts” Casestudy
Narrative | Dramatic Features.
Film Name: Swim Sistas (short).
Genre: Documentary.
Date: October 2025.
Director: Catherine Joy White.
Producer: Oriane Pick and Anaïs Ferrato.
Executive Producer: Catherine Joy White, Afua Hirsch and Amandla Crichlow..
Writer: Original Poetry by Catherine Joy White.
Cinematographer: Martyna Knitter.
Production Company: Candid Broads Productions, Kusini Productions and Born in Me Productions.
Budget: £5,000.
Financing: Mix of private equity, personal money and sponsors.
Shooting Format: Digital.
Screening Format: DCP and 4K.
World Premiere: DOC NYC.
Awards:
– Jury’s Choice Award – Winner. Thomas Edison Film Festival (USA – Academy Award and Canadian Screen Awards qualifying).
– Best Short Film – Winner – Kendal Mountain Festival (UK).
– Best Wild Swim & Water Film – Winner – Sheffield Adventure Film Festival (UK).
– Best East Midlands Film – Winner – Beeston Film Festival (UK – BIFA qualifying).
– Best Short Documentary – Winner – Poppy Jasper International Film Festival (US).
– Best Documentary Short – Winner – Northampton Film Festival (UK).
– Best Community Film – Winner – Sunrise Film Festival (UK – BIFA qualifying).
– Programmers Committee Awards – Winner – Diversity in Cannes.
– Short Film Innovation Prize and Best Score – Winner – Femme Filmmakers Festival.
Nominations:
– Academy Award® Qualifying Hawai‘i International Film Festival (US) – Official Selection (2025).
– Academy Award® & BAFTA Qualifying DOC NYC (US) – Official Selection (2025).
– Academy Award® Qualifying Cinequest Film Festival (US) – Official Selection (2026).
– Academy Award® Qualifying Dallas International Film Festival (US) – Official Selection (2026).
– Academy Award® Qualifying San Francisco International Film Festival (US) – Golden Gate Award Nominee – Family Film (2026).
– Academy Award® Qualifying Florida Film Festival (US) – Official Selection (2026).
– Academy Award® Qualifying RiverRun International Film Festival (US) – Official Selection (2026).
– Academy Award® Qualifying American Documentary & Animation Film Festival (US) – Official Selection (2026).
– Academy Award® & BAFTA Qualifying Indy Shorts International Film Festival (US) – Official Selection (2026).
– Academy Award® Qualifying Galway Film Fleadh (UK) – Official Selection (2026).
– Academy Award® Qualifying HollyShorts Film Festival (US) – Official Selection (2026).
– BAFTA & BIFA Qualifying Manchester Film Festival (UK) – Official Selection (2026).
– BIFA Qualifying Crystal Palace International Film Festival (UK) – Best Documentary Nominee (2026).
– BIFA Qualifying Romford Film Festival (UK) – Official Selection (2026).
– BIFA Qualifying Sunderland Shorts Film Festival (UK) – Official Selection (2026).
– BIFA Qualifying Kino London Short Film Festival (UK) – Official Selection (2026).
– BIFA & BAFTA Qualifying Women X Film Festival (UK) – Official Selection 2026.
– BIFA Qualifying Worcester International Film Festival (UK) – Official Selection 2026.
Website
The Official Trailer for “Swim Sistas”
Watch The Trailer for “Swim Sistas” Directed by Catherine Joy White
A Brief Bio. of “Catherine Joy White”
Catherine Joy White is an actor, writer, filmmaker and founder/CEO of the award-winning Kusini Productions. A company established to champion the voices of Black women. She has been honoured as a member of the Forbes 30 Under 30 Class of 2022.
Her debut film is Fifty-Four Days. Which she wrote, directed, produced and starred. It screened at prestigious BAFTA and Oscar qualifying festivals worldwide. Winning multiple awards including Best Actress, Best Screenplay and Best Short Film. Her debut book This Thread of Gold, named by the New Statesman as an essential book for 2023.
The “Catherine Joy White” Interview
indieactivity: What is your film about?
Catherine Joy White (CJW): Swim Sistas is a poetic documentary about Black women and girls. Reclaiming their relationship with water and finding joy and community in the process.
The film follows four women at very different points in their lives and swimming journeys. Olympian Alice Dearing, and rising athlete Lexie Sandiford, rugby player. And, The Traitors star Jasmine Boatswain and 56-year-old first-time swimmer Roni Bruno. Their stories are connected by a shared relationship with water but the film deliberately avoids presenting a single Black experience. Instead, it explores the different ways that swimming can become a space for freedom, self-discovery, sisterhood and transformation.
The film was born from my own experience. In 2021, after losing my beloved friend to suicide during the pandemic, I was overwhelmed by grief. I began swimming in a freezing lake at dawn and slowly found my way back to myself. Through swimming I also discovered a remarkable community of Black women. And, Swim Sistas grew from my desire to celebrate them and to ask a simple question. What might happen if more Black women and girls felt that the water belonged to them?
Tell us about the festival run, marketing and sales?
Catherine Joy White (CJW): We are incredibly proud of the journey Swim Sistas has taken so far. Its world premiere was at Academy Award® Hawai’i International Film Festival. And, Academy Awards and BAFTA-qualifying DOC NYC. The film has been selected for more than 30 international festivals. These including major Academy Award®, BAFTA and BIFA-qualifying events. Such as San Francisco International Film Festival, and HollyShorts Film Festival. Indy Shorts International Film Festival, and Galway Film Fleadh. Cinequest, Dallas International Film Festival, and Florida Film Festival. Manchester Film Festival and Kino London Short Film Festival.
The film has also received significant award recognition. Including the Jury’s Choice Award at Academy Award®-qualifying Thomas Edison Film Festival. Best Short Film at Kendal Mountain Festival. Best Documentary Short at Northampton Film Festival. Best Wild Swim & Water Film at Sheffield Adventure Film Festival. Best Short Documentary at Poppy Jasper International Film Festival and Best East Midlands Film at Beeston Film Festival.
It has received further recognition at BIFA-qualifying festivals. Including a Best Documentary nomination at Crystal Palace International Film Festival. A Community Award nomination at Sunrise Film Festival. An Honorable Mention at Brighton Rocks Film Festival, alongside a Golden Gate Award nomination at San Francisco International Film Festival. And a Screening Committee Award at Diversity in Cannes, sponsored by the BFI and Viola Davis’ JuVee Productions.
What’s even more beautiful though, is the community response we’ve seen since the film’s premiere. We’ve had the pleasure of screening Swim Sistas in museums, outdoor public spaces, classrooms and community gatherings. Including at the prestigious National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. At Canary Wharf Summer Screens in London (where it screened alongside The Shape of Water and The Little Mermaid!) We have also taken the film into community spaces through events and festivals. And have heard from women who have signed up for swimming lessons. Joined swimming groups or simply felt inspired to reconnect with the water after seeing the film.
We always wanted Swim Sistas to have a wider impact. But the response has been more than we could have imagined. We’re now looking to build on the communities we have reached already, and bring the film into more of these spaces, working with swimming communities, organizations and partners to spark conversations around representation, access, belonging but also the joy of being in water. Our ambition is for Swim Sistas to reach beyond the traditional festival audience and create a lasting impact for the women and communities who see themselves in the film.
Give the full Official Synopsis for your film?
Catherine Joy White (CJW): A poetic and visual meditation on swimming, sisterhood, and intergenerational connection, Swim Sistas follows the journeys of four Black British women and girls reclaiming their relationship with water
Featuring Olympian Alice Dearing, rising athlete Lexie Sandiford, rugby player and star of BBC show The Traitors Jasmine Boatswain, and 56-year-old first-time swimmer Roni Bruno, the film is narrated by Naomie Harris as one of the voices of ‘Mami Wata’ – an ancestral presence.
Development & Financing?
Catherine Joy White (CJW): The idea for Swim Sistas grew organically from my own relationship with swimming. After discovering open-water swimming during a period of profound grief, I began meeting Black women who had also found something transformative in the water. I knew I wanted to make a film that centred those experiences, but I didn’t want to make a conventional documentary about the barriers Black people face around swimming. I wanted to make something joyful, beautiful and emotionally immersive – somehow something that felt like water.
It got right to the very final round of Warner Bros. Discovery Black Britain Unspoken programme but was ultimately unsuccessful. I parked it for a while but then Oriane, one of our amazing producers encouraged me to pick it back up and I decided that we could do it on a pretty agile budget and to give it a go! We worked with a tiny but magnificent crew, almost entirely of people we had worked with before and then it was financed in a similarly community-focused way.
Dryrobe, who had supported my previous short, came on board with financial support, as well as robes to keep the team warm during the March shoot. Focus Canning, another long-standing collaborator (shout out to the AMAZING Leanne Ladbury), supported us with equipment. While Penshurst Place & Gardens generously provided our location for a nominal fee because they connected so strongly with what we were trying to make.
Our EPs contributed financially alongside my own investment, with a shared vision for the film. It was a genuinely collaborative effort. We didn’t have a large budget, but we were surrounded by people who believed in the film which sometimes is all you need!
Production?
Catherine Joy White (CJW): We shot Swim Sistas in a single day in March 2025 in and around an icy-cold lake. As we were working with open water, young contributors and deeply personal stories, keeping the crew small was super important. It allowed us to move quickly while creating an intimate and supportive environment for the women and girls on screen.
The contributors came into the film through very different routes. I had always found Alice Dearing so inspiring and first met her whilst she was preparing for the Olympics. Jasmine Boatswain is a childhood friend, Lexie Sandiford came through social media and swimming-community outreach, and Roni Bruno came into my life almost by accident. She worked with my sister at the time she was learning to swim and I had just made my short Fifty-Four Days, which is also about swimming. By chance, Roni told my sister that she was desperate to see the film, so my sister connected us and the rest is history.
We were incredibly lucky to have a brilliant team around us, including cinematographer Martyna Knitter, underwater and B-roll camera operator Richard Maskey, sound recordist Jermaine Monero and first AD Sue King. Despite having just one day to capture everything, the team worked incredibly hard to make most of the time we had.
The edit became a second stage of the filmmaking process in itself. I came into the shoot with an idea of what I thought the film was, but documentary filmmaking requires you to listen to what the footage is telling you. It’s so different from narrative and I was really “writing” the film in the edit with my amazing editor Sakky Barnor. We spent weeks together working through the material and the edit became an incredibly collaborative creative space.
It was also during post-production that the film really found its poetic voice. When I began writing the voice of Mami Wata, the film suddenly started to come together in a way I hadn’t anticipated. Mami Wata is voiced across generations, including by me, by Naomie Harris and by our editor’s 7-year-old daughter! That layering allowed me to bring ancestry, memory, poetry and lived experience into the same cinematic space. The same spirit continued through the rest of post-production, with Hollie Buhagiar’s sublime score and Pete Gummerson’s innovative sound design helping us build the sensory world of the water.
Festival Preparation & Strategy?
Catherine Joy White (CJW): The main focus strategically, was to prioritize award-qualifying festivals, those I had wonderful experiences with when screening my previous films, and festivals which felt particularly aligned with the film’s themes and audiences.
I would say the festival that gave us the edge or at least the biggest sense that something special might be happening, was when DOC NYC contacted us about our world premiere status. It was such a prestigious documentary festival and I honestly hadn’t expected my debut documentary to begin its journey there, especially given how poetic and somewhat experimental it is. So when they called a few days later to say we were selected, it was mind-blowing.
That gave the film an extraordinary launchpad and from there the festival journey began to fly. The film has since travelled through major documentary, film, outdoor and community festivals around the world, finding audiences in places I never could have imagined!
The Release?
Catherine Joy White (CJW): The journey for Swim Sistas is far from over. It’s still making its way through the festival circuit, with the film recently having its LA premiere at HollyShorts. We now have some incredible British festivals coming up this autumn, before we enter an exciting phase with an awards campaign and conversations around finding the right distribution partner. We’re also looking to build on the communities we have reached already, and work with swimming groups, organizations and partners to spark conversations around representation, access, belonging but also the joy of being in water.
Ultimately, we want Swim Sistas to have a life beyond the festival circuit and create a lasting impact for the women and communities who see themselves in the film. So once its festival journey is complete, our intention is to make the film available online so that as many people as possible can access it.
For me, the goal has never simply been to make a film that people watch. I want it to make someone think, maybe the water is for me too. If that leads someone to book their first swimming lesson, join a community, take their child swimming, feel joy or simply feel more at home in their own body then the film is doing what I hoped it would do.
Advice from the Filmmaker?
Catherine Joy White (CJW): Trust your voice. I think that is probably the biggest thing Swim Sistas has taught me. When you’re making something independently, particularly something that doesn’t fit neatly into a category, it can be tempting to make decisions based on what you think the industry expects from you. I had to learn to trust the fact that I wanted to make a documentary that was poetic, joyful and experimental and that I didn’t need to explain away those choices.
Also be open. Swim Sistas changed enormously in the edit. I had to be willing to listen to what it wanted to become, rather than forcing it to be the film I’d initially imagined. Finding Mami Wata, discovering the rhythm of the women together, and allowing moments of silence and beauty to exist, all came from that process of listening.
I also think you have to make the film you would want to see. Swim Sistas began because I wanted to see Black women represented in water, not simply through stories of exclusion or trauma, but through beauty and joy. That became my north star.
And then, in a kind of two-fold way, as the wonderful Celia Imrie always tells me, don’t wait to be asked to dance. Don’t wait for permission to make something. I didn’t get Black Britain Unspoken and I could have just left it there. Instead, I made it anyway and on my own terms, with collaborators I love. And look at it now! It always had to be this way, I do believe that.
Leave your comments below
Socials
Website
IMDb
LinkedIn
X
Vimeo
MORE STORIES FOR YOU
