Aguska to premiere at Birmingham Film Festival, spotlighting bullying in sport

Birmingham audiences got the world premiere of Aguska at 6:00 p.m. on Sunday, November 10, 2024, at Millennium Point, giving the anti-bullying short an immediate local stage inside a 10-day international festival built around professional and independent films. For a crowd tuned to indie work with a point of view, the premiere landed as more than another slot in the schedule: it put youth-sports bullying in front of a festival audience that understands how hard it is for a small film to break through without a clear social nerve.

Aguska is an inspirational short about Melissa, a young girl who is bullied at football, and the story follows her and her family as they push through the fallout. The film was made entirely in Sussex with support from local football clubs and organisations, which gives the project a grounded feel instead of a polished, issue-drama sheen. That local production base matters. A film about bullying in sport hits differently when it has actually been built around clubs, pitches and the junior women’s game, not staged as a generic message movie.

Fact Not Fiction Films produced Aguska, which stars Simon Callow, Hannah Baxter-Eve and Tegan Muggeridge. Ashley Lawrence, the Chelsea FC and Canada defender, also made a cameo, a smart bit of casting that connects the film to the wider football world without losing sight of Melissa’s story. The project was also made to support Kidscape, the bullying-prevention charity established in 1985 that focuses on practical support, training and advice to challenge bullying and protect young lives.

The film’s title also reaches beyond the narrative itself, tying back to freestyle football champion Aguska Mnich. Guinness World Records says Mnich held seven freestyle-football world titles by 2024, making her one of the sport’s most decorated women and lending the project a real-world athletic connection that fits the film’s sporting setting.

By the time Aguska later won the Audience Vote Award at the Birmingham Film Festival on Saturday, November 16, 2024, the response had already done the talking. The premiere gave Birmingham the first look at a film with a clear anti-bullying mission, and the audience award showed that the message, and the football setting, connected fast.