You may remember back in 2022, Hurst Foundation reported of a film in the making, directed by OJ Elliott Hasler (Star - 2018)?

Worthing Dome cinema has an exclusive preview screening of the film Vindication Swim on Thursday 07 March at 5.30pm, with a live Q&A session with director Elliot Hasler and actress Kirsten Callaghan. The Dome is asking guests to celebrate the glitz and glamour of the 20s, and to join them in your favourite early century outfits if you so wish!

'From the UK’s Youngest Film Director, Elliott Hasler (“the next Spielberg”), comes the inspirational true story of the first English woman to swim the Channel and is set to be released theatrically in the UK and Ireland on March 8th 2024

Swimmer Mercedes Gleitze fought, along with her troubled coach Harold Best, to overcome both the cold waters of the English Channel and the patriarchal society of 1920s England. However, after a rival comes forward claiming to have accomplished the same feat, Gleitze was forced into a fight to retain her record and her legacy.

Elliot says the film aims to be as real as possible to encapsulate what it would have been like for Ms Gleitze. ''Everything you see in the film you see is for real. That was very important to me, to capture the kind of essence of Mercedes and do things for real as she would have done them. Everything you see out at sea, is in the English Channel. There are no tanks, no blue screens, this is all for real and Kirsten Callaghan, who plays Mercedes, is in the water doing all of her own stunts. There are no body doubles, there is no fakery at all."

A blue plaque was unveiled in 2022 to commemorate the birthplace of Mercedes Gleitze and Elliott attended the ceremony held outside the Brighton home where she grew up. The event, organised by Brighton and Hove Commemorative Plaque Panel and the city’s Heritage Commission, was attended by Mayor Alan Robins, Brighton Kemptown MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle and the cast and crew of Vindication Swim.'