Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.

The movie industry has its ups and downs, and so does its release dates. And this week is one of the slowest all year, with no big-budget releases, and virtually no indie movies either. And the one getting the most publicity is one I will not review, or even mention its name. I haven’t seen it, but, word has it, it’s a bizarre piece of propaganda that crept up from south of the border to appease the religious right, a fringe group in Canada but a major force in the US.

Basically, it paints reproductive rights — specifically abortion — as the terrain of depraved and greedy doctors who cruelty chop up screaming babies in order to sell their parts for profit. It could make for a good science fiction / horror movie, but they’re marketing it as a “true story”. Anyway, if you find yourself in line at a movie theatre, be sure to avoid making any Unplanned decisions in your choice of film. Avoid it at all costs.

This week, I’m talking about a new documentary with a woman who wants to sail around the world.

Maiden

Dir: Alex Holmes

It’s England in the 1980s. Tracy Edwards is a young woman who works as a bartender seaside town. She has no real goals and ambitions but is drawn to the sea. So she decides to get a job as a cook on a sailboat. But she is shocked to find no one would hire a woman, even as a cook. Boating is a man’s world, they say, and not a place for “girls”.

But this “girl” – she’s actually in her early 20s – decides if you can’t join ’em, beat ’em… at their own game. She puts together an all-women crew, and enters the legendary Whitbread round the world boat race. But first she needs sponsors and a sailboat. She mortgages her home to buy a rusty old hull and spends the next couple years in an all-male shipyard, putting it into ship-shape condition. Then there’s the money. Much as in other sports, sponsors don’t want to give any money to women. But she eventually finds someone to put up the bucks. (No spoilers, but he happens to be a king.)

The journey has four legs after leaving Portsmouth: first to Punta del Este, Uruguay; next to Western Australia and on to Auckland, NZ; then to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and finally back to Portsmouth.

The press treats her, and the very idea of an all female crew, as a novelty, a human interest story. Do you fight

My beautiful picture

all the time? Can you control your emotions? Are you physically able? But as the journey progresses, they come to be seen as serious competitors, not just novelties. And they learn to own the media, donning swimsuits to enter a port to distract journalists after a less than stellar segment. But will they make it around the world?

Maiden – the name of the boat and the documentary – is a gripping sports movie with a feel-good ending. It interviews all the players 30 years later, but also includes stunning footage filmed by the crew themselves during their voyage.

It’s full of fascinating details… like the fact you can start smelling land at sea five days before you reach it. You really feel like you’re there with them, seaspray in your face, dodging icebergs in the south seas, or strapped to the mast. It’s an exciting, hazardous and gruelling trip around the world using only the power of wind. (GPS and the internet wasn’t around yet; you navigated using maps.) And the willpower and determination of Tracy Edwards and the rest of the crew.

Great doc.

Maiden opens today in Toronto; check your local listings.

This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.