The director of a documentary that honours the "powerful celebration of black British women's relationship with water" has been longlisted for an Oscar.
Cat White, from Northampton, said the 11-minute film Swim Sistas could make it to the final nominations for the Best Documentary Short Film at the 99th Academy Awards.
She said it was "just the most beautiful feeling" to see it so well received.
It features Jasmine Boatswain , also from the town, who appeared in the second series of Traitors. She said it was "insane" that an uplifting film about freedom and women's empowerment was getting so much attention.
The film took a day to shoot with a budget of £5,000 and was narrated by the Oscar-nominated actor Naomie Harris.
It also features Alice Dearing, the first black woman to represent Team GB in swimming at an Olympic Games, athlete Lexi Sandiford and Roni Bruno who learned to swim at 54.
White said the film was a tiny idea that was a true "labour of love". It grew from her love of early morning swimming during the Covid-19 pandemic after she suffered a double bereavement.
She said: "I found that the water gave me a sense of peace and healing in a time where it was kind of impossible to get that closure."
She said a further reason to make the film was that Swim England statistics showed about 5% of black adults in the United Kingdom regularly swim.
"It just completely stopped me in my tracks and I began to ask what would it look like if more people who look like me could experience this joy that I get from the water and I built this community around me", she added.
"What better way to change the narrative than by putting them in a film and telling the world about them?"
The film has won several awards including Best Documentary at Northampton Film Festival. It was also the Jury's Choice Award at the Academy Award-qualifying Thomas Edison Film Festival, Best Documentary at the BAFTA and BIFA-qualifying Women X Film Festival and Best Short Film at Kendal Mountain Festival.
It also featured at the inaugural United Nations Swimmable Cities Summit in Rotterdam and was being incorporated into the French national curriculum.
Boatswain said making the film with her family friend was "really special".
She said: "It's a film about breaking outside of the binary - I guess the box you've been put into."
As well as being a swimming enthusiast, Boatswain also used to play rugby for Old Northamptonians and was "the only girl on the rugby team".
She said: "When I tell people that I can swim, that I enjoy the water and going on holiday and jumping out into the sea, people seem quite shocked [and say] 'Oh you can do that' - yes I can.
"I never thought that I'd be involved in anything in my life that would be Oscar adjacent, it's incredible."
She added that White had an "absolutely brilliant mind".
White said it was a "massive boost" that Wunmi Mosaku , who won a BAFTA for Damiola, A Loved Boy and was Oscar-nominated for Sinners, had now joined her as an executive producer.
"I'm developing the project into a wider series where we explore stories around the world, Africa, the Caribbean, the US, black women's stories with water, but I'm interested in Asian women's stories with water, men's stories with water."
She said at a screening in New York someone came up to her and said they had been inspired to "go and learn to swim - which brought it all home".
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