From Jeff Z : Sarah Megan Thomas '01 and a movie about the sacrifice of crew competition

Jeff points to this story in the Philadelphia Inquirer about the making of the movie Backwards. 

The film is about a female rower and her struggle to make the Olympics The script is written by Sarah Megan Thomas who also plays the lead. Thomas herself was a star athlete in prep school and at Williams.

From the article:

Thomas Eakins
The Pair Oared Shell

The seed of the movie was planted when Thomas was a student at Williams College. Her rowing mentor, a fellow student a year older, left school to train for the 2000 Summer Olympics. After countless hours of work and practice, she literally just missed the boat;she was named first alternate. "That must suck. No one talks about how that must feel, to get that far, to be so close, " Thomas says, "The story has never been told about all the sacrifice required to compete at that level, the things you miss, the life that gets left behind."

And now it has been.

Thomas describes Backwards as "a sports romance" that focuses on women athletes, a riverine version of Bend It Like Beckham, with oars instead of soccer balls.

For old Philadelphians, the action centers on Boat House Row, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Haverford College, and Flannigans Boat House in Wayne.

Congratulations, Sarah Megan Thomas!
http://backwardsthemovie.com/