Exclusive: Tracy Edwards and Director Alex Holmes Talk ‘Maiden’ at NY Premiere

Oscar season for documentaries has begun and Maiden is worthy of the award.

The extraordinary yet inspiring film tells the story of Tracy Edwards, a 24-year-old woman who creates an all-female crew in the Whitbread Round the World Race, a yacht race that covered 33,000 miles and lasted for nine months in 1989. Throughout their demanding journey, Tracy and her crew experienced extreme chauvinism and criticism but managed to persevere.

The premiere featured the original women who sailed as well as special guests Whoopi Goldberg, Joanna Coles, Carol Alt, Harry Smith, Kaity Tong, Roma Torre, Kristen Shaughnessy, Margaret Colin, and Arturo Castro. Queen Noor of Jordan, a co-host of the evening could not attend but sent a note of gratitude for the crew to be read to the audience. The evening concluded with dinner at Ousia Restaurant.

Film subject Tracy Edwards and Director Alex Holmes talked to The Knockturnal on the Red Carpet at the New York premiere of Maiden at the Landmark 57.

 

The Knockturnal: What advice would you give your younger self looking back at your journey?

Tracy Edwards: I wouldn’t change anything I did. I might give myself advice on being a better leader and not tackling the Mary Claude situation, and letting it get until two weeks before we left and then breaking her heart — that was not good but I was young and I didn’t know how to handle the situation … The advice I would give myself is don’t be afraid of confrontation, which I know sounds bizarre because I look very confrontational, but with people who are close to me, I’m not.

The Knockturnal: What surprised you about this grueling journey that you had?

Tracy Edwards: I don’t think anything really surprised me … How many people tried to stop us getting to the start line surprised me. Once we got to the start line and we were doing the race, we were in home territory, so we were like “yeah, we can do this,” but I couldn’t believe the anger that we engendered amongst all of these guys going “you can’t do this” and it wasn’t like “you might not be able to do this”  or “you might get stranded,” it was “you’re gonna die, you won’t be able to do it.” It was like “ohhh bloody hell.”

The Knockturnal: In the film, you say that you don’t like the word feminism. How do you feel about the word now? Has your position changed?

Tracy Edwards: Yes, it has changed since then. I was very young and at the time that word was not a very nice word. Women have reclaimed that word and men have become part of that word which is pretty cool and I think we’ve taken ownership of it. It means equality and fairness. I think most intelligent people believe that that’s what we need to save this world from everything that has gone wrong. I have definitely changed my mind about that.

The Knockturnal: How did this journey enrich your life?

Tracy Edwards: It changed everything about my life. It made me into someone who thought if I dream it and I believe it and I work my backside off I can get there and I really hope that that’s also what young girls take away from this: you work hard, keep going, don’t listen to the white noise around you. Keep going.

The Knockturnal: How do you feel about the difference between the commentary the guys received versus the women in the media?

Tracy Edwards: It was just so annoying, you know, they were getting questions like “what sails did you use,” “what tactics” and our questions where “did you use Lypsyl? did you fight?” and even when we won two legs, those were still the questions we were getting, so we know then we have a long way to go.

 

The Knockturnal: What drew you to this film?

Alex Holmes: Well, the first time I heard the story was at my daughter’s elementary school. She was 11 years old and about to move on, and the school had gotten a guest speaker to talk to the children who were leaving and that speaker was Tracy, and the minute I heard her tell her story I knew that she was a incredible character and I was convinced there was a great film in it, in fact so convinced my first question to her after I met her that evening was surely this must’ve already been made into a film and I missed it and she said, “No. No, this hasn’t been done.”
What attracted me to it, is not only is this a story about tremendous achievements by this group of women that were so determined to just follow their dreams, what attracted me to it was actually the shock that my daughter will still face many of the same obstacles that the women faced 25-30 years ago, that was a real surprise to me. You think that world is changing but its only changed superficially and I was there with my daughter in a big stage in her life about to take a big step growing up and I’m thinking my goodness she’s gonna grow up with a lot these same obstacles, and barriers that she’s gonna have to dismantle and find ways around or overcome so it seems to me not only a beautiful story of inspiration, but also an important story that we should celebrate and bring to a new audience of younger woman, so they can find inspiration for their own lives.

The Knockturnal: What do you think the reaction will be as everyone leaves the screening tonight?

Alex Holmes: I hope the reaction will be that they rediscover their own determination to pursue their dreams to aim high and to not be put off by the obstacles that they find in their way, to not assume that it’s going to be easy, and that the slightest difficulty will put you off course because what Tracy does in this film is overcome obstacle after obstacle but refuses to accept that no is the answer and to always keep going in the face of all that challenge and I think that’s a wonderful story.

The Knockturnal: Lastly, how has this film changed your life working on it?

Alex Holmes: Its taken 4 years to make and its been a wonderful 4 years having Tracy in my life because she is an inspiring character. I have taken the lessons from her. There were times when making this film was difficult. We had difficulty raising finance and putting the film together but Tracy was an inspiration to me in that moment not to give up, but keep going. This was a story worth telling and I hope to carry that forward into everything else I do in life, so I’ve been the greatest beneficiary of telling this story I hope the audience gets a little bit of what I’ve had.

Sony Pictures Classics will release Maiden in theaters starting this Friday, June 28.