Grassroots: How a Nottingham Football Film Tells a Tale of Resilience

She Will Play On is the brainchild of writer Jess Hilditch and director Grace Morgan. The pair had a fully fledged plot when producer Ben Fletcher connected with them and began work on the project alongside his co-producer Leah Joy. After months of hard work, the film had its Midlands debut at Short Stack festival at Broadway Cinema last Sunday where it was welcomed enthusiastically by the crowd. 

As the first signs of spring came and went, producer Ben Fletcher and I sat outside Broadway Cinema, where Ben works part-time as a BFI Film Academy Assistant, and chatted about the film and its production.

She Will Play On is “about an aspirational footballer who faces classism and sexism, as well as issues in her personal life, and they get in the way of her dream”, Ben explains. Lucy is played by Eva Ashton who superbly embodies the role, despite being so young. Lucy is supported throughout by her sister Sienna, played by Jessica Balmer, who fulfils the role of responsible guardian whilst their mum is unwell. The sisterly bond between the two is at the heart of the film, and Ben explained that for the writer Jess, the two characters symbolized two sides of herself.

It’s filmed in Nottingham which is something producer Ben was intent on. “For me, as a city, I think we have a really strong football culture. I knew if I was going to be part of it, I wanted to bring that element to it.” Bringing the film home was also about being conscious that he didn’t “make something where I feel like I'm just parachuting in - doing it and leaving it”, Ben says, “Authenticity is a bit of a buzzword, but I want it to be meshed with the place and with the story.” 

As a film about women in football, Ben was quick to acknowledge that “it’s not my story to tell.” Instead, as a producer, “it’s about knowing when to step back, letting the writer and director express their ideas.” Ben describes himself as a grassroots producer, and I was intrigued about what that meant. “For me”, he said, “It’s about being community-orientated and wanting to make films that have some sort of connection to the place, community, and people. It’s making films that have a real foot on the ground.” 

Not only is the film a local story, but it’s also a timely one. Just last Saturday, on International Women’s Day, Lionesses captain Leah Williamson expressed her opinion that there’s still a long way for football to go for younger women: “I would be lying if I [didn’t say] that every single day, even in the most subtle form, we're discriminated against.” 

We see this discrimination in She Will Play On. As well as the socio-economic barriers that Lucy faces, there’s the “toxic mindset” and “herd or mob mentality” that many of the boys in the film have. But the film embodies the fighting lioness spirit that we saw rise to triumph in 2022 because Lucy and Sienna are far from willing to give up. 

Perhaps one of the most interesting parts of interviewing Ben was the connection he made between the struggle Lucy has to secure her footballing future and the struggle the crew faced in making this short film. Having studied film at university, Ben seems to be constantly thinking about theory, whether he’s always aware of it or not. He linked their mirrored struggles with a theory and film movement called Dogme 95. 

Dogme 95 was a Danish film movement that began in 1995. It had its own rules, or “vows of chastity”, that dictated how directors could make their films. One rule stated: “Music must not be used unless it occurs where the scene is being shot.” These rules had a higher purpose than to simply inconvenience the director though, they aimed, through low-budget production, to purge and simplify filmmaking. 

There may be a pretentiousness to it, but these rules meant that directors had to think of new ways of making films. Thomas Vinterberg, one of the minds behind the movement said, “If I don’t have music, if I don’t have anything, I have to keep an audience engaged with the story every second, just with the actors and the characters.”

Now, what does an avant-garde Danish film movement have to do with a grassroots Nottingham producer and his film about a young footballer? The character Lucy has several barriers between her and her dreams: her difficult home life, her economic situation, and the male-dominated football space she finds herself in. Ben sees this struggle mirrored in the production of the film itself: when “making a short film you always feel like you’re up against it, no one’s handing you money. It’s an uphill battle the whole way through.” Their connection is simple: they face limitations.

Ben explained, that “in rule-based filmmaking you have limits, and those limits can actually inspire creativity. When you’re working on small-budget films, if you have that ethos, no matter the story or content, you understand how you can benefit and use that to your advantage.” 

When I asked Ben what limitations there were in making She Will Play On, he explained that funding was a huge restriction, but that this meant they had to get imaginative. They did “a lot of outreach, we did a bit of grassroots campaigning putting flyers in town everywhere.” Then they reached out to organizations who believe in the power of women’s football. This meant they were ultimately supported by some big names: Art Of Football, Her Game Too, Nottinghamshire FA, Lounge Trip, and Pelé Rocket. 

For the sisters in the film, Ben says, “they’re working within their limits and trying to create something positive out of that despite the negatives on the periphery.” Of course for Lucy, and many young women, the barriers they face are not self-imposed for aesthetic purposes or ones that can simply be avoided by being creative. In reality, we don’t choose our limitations. But to cling to that would be to miss the point: it’s about what we do with our limitations and what they can inspire in us.

Thinking practically then, how does Ben think short filmmakers and young people reflected in characters like Lucy can overcome their barriers? “A lot of barriers are institutional factors which are hard to challenge from the ground level, but there are lots of funding bodies, including the BFI who are very supportive of young filmmakers.” In parallel, in the film’s narrative, “as much as it’s about individual work ethic, it’s about that person battling on with a network of support and empathy.” 

We can watch this short film from Nottingham then, and see a story about a courageous young footballer, but we can also see a wider message: the limitations we face might define us, and maybe that’s no bad thing. 

She Will Play On is currently playing at film festivals across the country. To keep up to date with the film's journey, follow their Instagram for updates.