Between scoring goals and making chest bumps, the Mighty Cheetahs put on quite a display when they’re playing their best soccer.

It’s a display that looks a bit unusual coming from a soccer team of sweet-faced third-grade girls, especially when the Cheetahs are playing against – and beating – teams made up of boys.

“Kick Like A Girl,” a 23-minute film about the Cheetahs’ two seasons playing in a boys division, will be screened in Bangor on Tuesday, May 6, at Husson College’s Richard Dyke Center for Family Business. The showing, which is free, starts at 8 a.m.

There will be a panel discussion after the show. Other showings will be held next week in Portland, Waterville, Augusta, Hallowell and Lewiston.

The film’s writer, director and producer is Jenny MacKenzie, a New York native who has summered all her life in Boothbay. She previously directed “Where’s Herbie?” a short film about Georgetown lobsterman Herbie Loveitt. “Where’s Herbie?” was screened at the 2007 Maine Film Festival.

“Kick Like A Girl,” which takes place in Salt Lake City, was filmed during the fall 2005 and spring 2006 soccer seasons. MacKenzie was coaching the Cheetahs, who had gone undefeated for two years in their girls recreational league and decided rather than compete in a travel league, they’d enter the boys division for tougher competition. MacKenzie’s daughter was a member of the team.

MacKenzie said her mother, who is a writer, was visiting Utah and attended one of the Cheetahs’ games against a boys team.

“Immediately she heard some of the banter on the sidelines, the comments, and felt the tension,” MacKenzie said from Salt Lake City earlier this week. “She said, ‘Jenny, you’ve got to start filming these games. This is a story right here.'”

There’s footage of the Cheetahs playing soccer, but the film’s key moments come in the interviews with the girls on the Cheetah team and the boys against whom they played. One boy admits in the film he expected his team to “cream” the Cheetahs.

Instead, the boys were the ones who got creamed.

“I think the boys are really quite humble and so honest,” said MacKenzie, who was a social worker for 20 years before deciding to go to film school at the age of 42. “They come away respecting their opponents as athletes and not looking at them by gender.”

The girls felt the pressure of playing against boys, and rose to the tougher level of competition.

“When [the boys] play us we get a little rougher and we show them what we’re made of,” one girl told MacKenzie in the film.

In their own third-grade way, the boys and girls make a sort of social commentary on sports, as well as society’s expectations of women. The kids’ honesty helped MacKenzie flesh out that commentary.

“The real beauty from my perspective is that they were so honest and candid in their thoughts,” MacKenzie said. “I find that incredibly rich. They haven’t been [sensitized]. They still really call a spade a spade and [tell] it how it is.”

The Maine showings are sponsored by the Maine Women’s Fund and underwritten by the Merrill Lynch Diversity Council, which has named the series of Maine showings

“Kick Like a Girl, Invest Like a Woman.”

The idea that sports can empower women to make good choices, financially and otherwise, was a driving force for MacKenzie.

“I think the idea is to create a dialogue and to inspire women and families who have girls to take charge of their lives,” she said, “and to understand that the life lessons learned on the playing field and through competitive sports can, I think, allow you to make better decisions in all areas of your life.”

“Kick Like a Girl” was nominated for a Billie Award, named after tennis player Billie Jean King, which honors work that positively portrays women and girls in the media. The film has also been accepted into 10 festivals around the country.

For more information, go to www.kicklikeagirlmovie.com.

jbloch@bangordailynews.net

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