Institute History
Description
Maiden thrilled audiences at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this year with its remarkable story of empowerment and perseverance. Through extensive archival footage and deeply personal interviews, this stunning documentary pieces together a suspenseful, poignant, and uplifting journey that speaks to the abiding tenacity of the human spirit.
In the late 1980s, amateur British sailor Tracy Edwards decided she’d had enough of being dismissed and belittled as the only woman on the seafaring crews she’d participated in. Setting her sights on the upcoming Whitbread Round the World Race—a staggering 40,000-nautical-mile circumnavigation of the earth that few boats dared tackle—Tracy assembled the world’s first international all-female sailing crew and entered the competition. As they weathered not only life-threatening high seas but also a storm of sexism in the media, this inspiring group of women had to rely on their own pure resilience—and each other—to prove the naysayers and skeptics wrong. What they hadn’t quite expected, however, was how their expedition would come to signify so much more than just a race to the finish line.