Private Project

Throw Like A Girl

After being treated like an unwelcome outsider at Red Sox Fantasy Camp, filmmaker Cami J Kidder, goes on a quest around the World to understand why American women are shutout of our National Pastime, baseball. Seeking a team of her own, she befriends some living legends of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, travels with USA's Women's National Baseball Team, and learns from the youth and leaders of the girls’ baseball movement.

  • Cami J Kidder
    Director
    Store, Bottom of the 9th, In Somebody's Company
  • Cami J Kidder
    Writer
    Store, Bottom of the 9th, In Somebody's Company
  • Cami J Kidder
    Producer
    Store, Bottom of the 9th, In Somebody's Company
  • Justine Siegal
    Key Cast
    "Herself"
    Girls of Summer, The Sweet Spot
  • Debra A Shattuck Burton
    Key Cast
    "Herself"
  • Cami J Kidder
    Key Cast
    "Herself"
    In Somebody's Company, Bottom of the 9th, When Mother Earth Cries, Purdie's Day in the Sunlight
  • Project Type:
    Documentary
  • Genres:
    Gender Equality, Women's Rights, Social Justice, Sports
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 28 minutes
  • Production Budget:
    277,121 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Republic of, United States, Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of
  • Language:
    English, Japanese, Spanish
  • Shooting Format:
    Minidv, HD
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Cami J Kidder

Cami J. Kidder is originally from Montpelier Vermont. She moved to Los Angeles in 2002 to pursue her dream of acting on the world stage. After attending the Sundance Film Festival in 2004, she was inspired to make her own films instead of waiting for someone else ‘to let’ her work. Unfortunately for her acting career, she is drawn more to the power of documentary films and their unique ability to help understand more about each other and our fellow humans.

Her first documentary, STORE is about people, storage units and our relationship to our stuff, and had a successful festival run winning several “Best Documentary” awards. After being named “One of the Best Documentaries of 2005, STORE was offered distribution by Maitland-Primrose.

She started shooting THROW LIKE A GIRL, a feature-length documentary about the ongoing struggle facing girls and women as they strive for acceptance in baseball. This film is in post-production, seeking finishing funds and currently had a successful and productive work-in-progress screening on May 9 in the Washington, DC area.

BOTTOM OF THE 9TH a short personal documentary about her father who struggled with an undiagnosed learning disability for over 40 years was her thesis. Cami earned her MFA in Film in 2016 from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is currently developing a feature-length documentary on the effects of adult illiteracy on society.

A former ski racer and coach, she also works as a freelance cinematographer and editor. Cami intends to keep building a career telling stories through the documentary format that can spur social change. She believes that documentary films are the closest most of us can come to ‘walking a mile in another’s shoes” and are unique in their ability to changes hearts and minds.

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Director Statement

THROW LIKE A GIRL my quest to understand why American women don't routinely play baseball. Since Title IX, women's participation in sport has grown, as have opportunities for women - except in baseball. Basketball is basketball, tennis is tennis, golf is golf, swimming, skiing, surfing etc etc. are all the same for men and women, but not baseball. "Baseball is for boys. Softball is for girls," we are told from age 8 or 10 on up. But why?

I’m a lifelong Red Sox fan, so after we Reversed the Curse at long last in 2004, I felt that the World had literally changed. That suddenly all my wishes, hopes and dreams could come true, that I wouldn’t always be a loser or an also-ran. A trip to the Red Sox Fantasy Camp to live out my dream of being a professional baseball player seemed to be the perfect way to celebrate this sea change. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the amazing experience I expected. I spent a week with 95 other campers - all guys - being teased, mocked and belittled. They behaved as if I didn’t belong there – simply because I was a woman. I went with my Dad, and had brought a camera crew to document our dreams coming true….but they didn’t.

I didn’t want to make a film about the misogynistic culture of baseball – and I still don’t, so I shelved that footage for over a decade. In 2010, I learned that the US has National Women’s Baseball Team, and they were holding open tryouts before going to compete in the IBAF Women’s Baseball World Cup in Venezuela. I discovered pretty quickly I wasn’t good enough to make the team, but I could document their efforts and perhaps bring them some much needed attention.

After that incredible experience, I decided to keep going and see if I could find a logical reason for the exclusion of 50% of the population from playing our National Pastime. The next group of amazing women I met was the players of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) whose stories were immortalized in Penny Marshall’s iconic film, A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN, and finally find the acceptance and belonging that I have been seeking.

Drawing upon what I observed traveling to 6 different countries, and all around the USA, I use baseball as a microcosm for society and to examine unconscious gender bias in a fresh way. Serving as a guide on this journey, we are presenting a unique equal rights film, told through sport and in which men are not the enemy. My intention is to start an international conversation about gender inequity and to use sport to make it more accessible to an audience who wouldn’t typically go see a “feminist documentary.”

One of the primary goals of this project is to let girls know they aren’t alone, they are weird, and they aren’t troublemakers. Women have always played this game, in fact, we might have invented the progenitor of all stick-and-ball sports back in the 17th century. By showing girls and women excelling on the baseball field as players and umpires, and in the front office, we will encourage girls to go confidently for their dreams, and give them options and support them when they meet resistance.