The Indescribable Feeling
By Lauren Midwinter
BAFTA Connect Member
It’s a rock dropping in your stomach, a sharp switch as your senses hyper-focus. A chill. A tremor. A churn in your gut. It’s all of these things and none of them. How your body reacts when someone is following you is so bloody hard to describe, yet every woman I’ve spoken to knows—The Feeling.
Public sexual harassment isn't uncommon, particularly if you're a city-dwelling woman, purely due to the sheer volume of people; it's something you come to weather. I feel sad even to write that. You have your arsenal of defences and safety mechanisms—things so ingrained, things you were never actively taught, but absorbed through social conditioning, advice in the ladies' loo, and chats with mates in the pub.
Like most women, I had experienced countless moments—some small, some significant—but this time felt different. It came at a moment when news of women being followed, attacked, or killed for simply walking home was relentless. The police advice focused on changing women's behaviour and not that of the perpetrator. It felt incessant, unstoppable, overwhelming. I was scared, frustrated, and defiant.
So when a man followed me that April morning, The Feeling sprang into instinctive action, I adjusted my pace and let him pass. He smirked—he knew. At that moment, the weight of the month's frustration rose, and I decided to turn the tables. I followed him.
Toe to heel, close enough to smell his aftershave, I paced behind him. But as I trailed him, I realised—he would never feel the cold fear I did. Not just because he was physically bigger but because he didn’t carry the weight of history and societal constructs that imbalance his rights and standing in the world. I couldn’t mimic a man’s behaviour and expect the same outcome. We weren’t playing by the same rules.
Following him didn’t make me feel powerful. I felt silly and naive, and my acidic frustration only deepened—not at him, but at the system that allowed this inequality to persist. It wasn’t healthy, and I needed to channel it. As a writer and director, I expressed it the only way that felt right—in a film script. Tailing flew out of my fingertips.
My work often explores the grey areas of challenging subjects, making space for conversation rather than drawing rigid lines. Public sexual harassment is a gender issue, but it’s not men vs. women—it’s societal. I didn’t want to paint villains or heroes. I tried to capture what it feels like to be on the receiving end.
I wanted to subvert the stereotypes of what public sexual harassment looks like in the media. I wanted to show the kind I mostly came in contact with but never saw represented. We set Tailing in daylight—bright, sunny and full of colour. We filmed on bustling streets. There's little dialogue, no threats or violence, just subtle body language. The camera movement focuses on our protagonist, Marfa, reflecting her experience, rarely giving space to the man following her. The music and sound design sweep you from buoyant and bright to dropping into Marfa's internal world - that feeling - through to her grasp for power.
Working with my incredible cast and crew, it was clear that this story resonated; they had either experienced The Feeling or had loved ones who had. It became less and less about my experience and more and more about our community's voice.
As I shared the finished film, I saw how it connected with audiences, particularly women. They would pinpoint specific details and describe how they related to them in a way I have never experienced before. That’s when I knew Tailing could be part of something bigger.
I reached out to Our Streets Now because their work in education and advocacy is changing perceptions—and laws—around public sexual harassment. The team immediately connected with the fact that I was exploring the greyer areas of public sexual harassment. They told me that these broader experiences are more complex to address in educational settings, and Tailing could help spark meaningful conversations. The film highlights the long-term impact of what these instances can result in: it lives more with the victim than the perpetrator. Research by the Young Women’s Trust found that ‘younger women who had experienced sexism were more likely to report greater psychological distress even four years following a sexist experience.'
Around the time of the incident, when public sexual harassment flooded the news, I also had positive interactions with men on the streets—men crossing the street at night to avoid startling me, small acts of awareness. When public conversations about harassment grow, so does collective consciousness. I hope Tailing can become a valuable tool to raise awareness and spark conversations amongst all genders about the grey areas of public sexual harassment—because conversation is the seed of change.
