'Tailing' Premieres on International Women’s Day to Confront Public Sexual Harassment

This International Women’s Day 2025, Scenester Films is proud to be partnering with Our Streets now, to host the digital premiere of “Tailing” - a new short film, written and directed by the award-winning director, Lauren Midwinter.

Our Streets Now is an organisation that is committed to ending public sexual harassment (PSH) and has been at the forefront of this fight since their  foundation in 2019. In 2023, as part of a wider collaboration with Plan UK, they led the immensely successful campaign, #CrimeNotCompliment. This campaign resulted in a landmark law change, making public sexual harassment a criminal offence in the UK (Plan UK, 2023). While this is an important step forward, we all know that legal change alone is not enough. That’s why Our Street’s Now is now focused on education and prevention to tackle PSH at its roots.

Tailing is the retelling of an experience of public sexual harassment told through the lens of Marfa, the film’s key protagonist. Throughout Tailing, Lauren explores the broad spectrum within which PSH can occur, revealing that people’s actual experiences often defy the conventional interpretations and definitions of what PSH actually is and how it manifests itself. The film also draws a keen focus on the disparity that often exists between the way in which PSH can have a hugely traumatic effect on victims, whilst at the same time having little to no impact on perpetrators. 

"Marfa is the bright, bold captain of her own ship—until a stranger threatens to ruin her day. This isn’t Marfa's first time at the public sexual harassment rodeo, and she's sick of it. But if you fight fire with fire, there’s always the risk of getting burnt."

A recent Plan UK report found that 75% of girls aged 12 - 21 years old in the UK have experienced some form of public sexual harassment in their lifetime (Plan UK, 2023). In addition to this, Our Streets Now research shows nearly 1 in 2 women aged 16 - 24 years old experiencing it regularly (Our Streets Now, 2023). 

‘Tailing explores how gender impacts our experiences of public sexual harassment and how actions that can look insignificant to one person can have a huge impact on another person. The film is a way to start conversations about public sexual harassment that isn’t always taken seriously, like persistent staring, being followed and being made to feel uncomfortable. Together we can end public sexual harassment.’ - Charli Keely, campaigns coordinator, Our Streets Now 

‘I’m proud to have teamed up with Our Streets Now, an incredible team doing important work in awareness and education around public sexual harassment and how to combat it. We hope that Tailing sparks conversations about the grey areas of public sexual harassment—because conversation is the seed of change.’ - Lauren Midwinter, director of Tailing