In just 21 captivating minutes, A Swim Lesson, the latest project from Grammy winner and Emmy nominee Rashida Jones, proves that big things can come in small packages. Stepping behind the camera as director and executive producer alongside Will McCormack, Jones crafts an Oscar-qualifying short documentary that’s making waves for its heartwarming message and inspiring portrait of human resilience.
The film centers on Bill Marsh, a swim coach whose innovative methods empower children to conquer their deepest fears and embrace the life-saving skill of swimming. Since its debut at the 2024 Telluride Film Festival, A Swim Lesson has garnered critical acclaim, capturing the Audience Award at both the Hamptons and Calgary Film Festivals, and landing a coveted spot on the Cinema Eye Honors shortlist.
A Swim Lesson dives into Marsh’s unique eight-day program, where he fosters a safe and supportive environment that helps children overcome their anxieties of the water. Witnessing these transformations firsthand, Jones beautifully describes these lessons as “a great opera,” with Bill Marsh as the “maestro of this emotional orchestra.”
Through his stern, yet compassionate approach, Marsh empowers children not only to learn to swim, but to confront their fears and unlock the potential for personal growth. As Jones emphasizes, this message extends far beyond the pool. “The main call to action,” she says, “is about swimming safety. Half the world doesn’t know how to swim, and drowning is a preventable cause of death for children.” A Swim Lesson serves as a powerful reminder that overcoming fear can lead to self-discovery and, in this case, potentially save lives.
Jones, who previously directed the Grammy-winning documentary Quincy – an intimate portrait of her late father, music icon Quincy Jones – continues to demonstrate her directorial versatility. Her body of work, encompassing recent projects like Angie Tribeca, #BLACKAF and the Apple TV+ series Sunny, further underscores her ability to excel in both scripted and documentary storytelling on either side of the camera..
In an interview with Awards Focus, Rashida shares insights about her personal connection to Bill Marsh’s legacy, the challenges of directing a short documentary, and the collaborative process that shaped the film’s final cut.
Awards Focus: What first drew you to this project? I imagine there must have been some kind of personal connection to Bill Marsh.
Rashida Jones: I have a son. As a person who lives in California, the first thing you think about is making sure your kid can swim. Bill had a really good reputation—I had heard a lot about him. I don’t think I knew at the time that he had this sort of Jedi energy. I just knew he was really good, and he delivered results—that’s what I had heard.
The first time I watched him was during COVID. I think the only reason I got in was because people had probably dropped out. Watching him with these kids, I immediately realized he was on some other level. He was treating them like people—like little souls that needed a friend and some guidance.
Seeing how he customized the experience for each kid, who were all so different in how they handled their fear, was really remarkable to me. Will, my co-director—we’re best friends—and our kids did the class together. We were sitting there watching Bill in the pool, joking that we wanted him to come to our house in the morning to help us through our day. Everything he said felt like it applied to way more than just the pool. It wasn’t just about swimming; it felt like it was about life.
Then Emily Arlook, our producer, said, “You guys should make a film.” And we said, “Absolutely, we should.”
AF: How did Bill respond when you proposed the idea of making a documentary about him?
Jones: I kind of sidled up to him after class one day and said, “Hey, have you ever thought about documentaries?” He told me, “Yeah, lots of people have tried. They’ve asked me to do it, and we’ve gone down the road, but it hasn’t happened.” He also mentioned he’d made notes over the years. I think he was a little skeptical, but he sent me his notes, and they were beautiful. I thought, Wow, this guy has so much wisdom that applies to any painful or uncomfortable moment in life. When we sat down to talk, we realized we shared similar feelings about the world, parenting, and being alive. We wanted to go deep quickly. I think he trusted us, and he got to do what he does best—being present with his students—while leaving the rest to us. He was game.
AF: When you proposed this project, did you already know it would be a short rather than a longer documentary?
Jones: You know, I had never made a short before, and I was really interested in those parameters. But I think because the intensive is eight days long, it really lent itself to that kind of storytelling. It was way more difficult than I expected it to be. You initially think it’s shorter, it’s less content, but the truth is there was a lot of story to tell here. And so we had to make some hard decisions about what to focus on.
AF: You mentioned the tough decisions. Were there specific areas or scenes that were hardest to cut?
Jones: The success in the story isn’t very linear. We got lucky with River—all of that happened on the same day which is very unusual. You see the scenes of his mom being protective, Bill encouraging her to let it play out, River’s breakthrough, and him swimming. It all happened in one time frame. For the other kids, it was harder. We had to piece together their journeys, like Zippy’s, which was harrowing. She was scared, angry, and frustrated but gradually calmed down and started listening. That process spanned a few days, and we had to weave it together.
AF: There’s a scene where River’s mom makes some suggestions to Bill that might help comfort him as he had been crying quite a bit in his previous lesson. I imagine many parents struggle with sitting idle while their children struggle. Was this hard for you, both as a parent and as the Director?
Jones: Bill has a great reputation. You know, there was a parent who came out from the Midwest to work with him because nothing was helping for their child. People come there understanding that you’re really lucky to get time with Bill. That reverence creates some deference. Before filming, I had seen him ask parents and grandparents to leave when their behavior disrupted the process and it’s not a comfortable situation sometimes. His rule is the kid has to stay in the pool. Some parents may not love that, but it’s his technique, and it works. While he may have shut River’s mom’s request down, it was done lovingly and respectfully.
AF: How different was it directing a documentary versus all the scripted work you’ve done in the past? And did you provide any direction to Bill as your subject?
Jones: I made a documentary about my dad over six years, so this wasn’t my first time. I love documentaries because you have to be the best version of yourself to make something meaningful. You have to be present. You have to be adaptable. And you have to be aware of your subject and do right by them. Somebody was telling me a story the other day about some documentary and the subject sued the person. That’s a nightmare for me, because the whole point of doing this is to introduce Bill to the world as he really is. And that’s our job. That’s our responsibility. Luckily, we know Bill’s process and we know the way he works. So it was sort of easy to plug in. We didn’t know if there was going to be high drama. We didn’t know if kids were going to be successful. So there were some unknowns. And we were nervous that we wouldn’t be able to get anything that felt worth watching. But we got lucky. We were there, we were prepared and we got lucky, which is kind of a nice, happy accident.
AF: How did you and Will collaborate as directors? Did you divide tasks or work jointly?
Jones: We’ve collaborated so much, Will and I, as writers, as producers, and this was much like our other collaborations. We just kind of hold each other’s hands and act as a support system. I do think we have different strengths. Will is a very poetic, romantic thinker so he always has his eye on the bigger thematic, emotional structure. And I’m thinking about bricklaying. Like, I want to make sure that we have the exposition in place. I want to make sure that the story has all of its beats so that we can build to something and toward something and away from something. It’s just good to have four eyes on these scenes because a lot’s going on. There are three kids in the pool, and there’s Bill, so I can walk up to our camera—to our DP, Alex (Alexandrov)—and say, “Go over there. I think this thing is kind of unfolding over there.” And then Will’s like, “Oh, while you were gone, this thing happened.”
AF: Did the story evolve in the editing process? How did the final product compare to your original vision?
Jones: Yeah, definitely. There were stories we didn’t have time to tell. There were perspectives that we kind of broke. And we were really lucky because we had our editor, Mo Stoebe. He’s just an extremely talented and intuitive cutter. And so everything he showed us just felt like he understood the movie and he understood what we were trying to do. It really became about an embarrassment of riches. And there was a time when we had more stuff from the parents perspective including interviews of the parents. We had more technical stuff from Bill. So we had to find the right balance between the philosophical and the technical. I think it was the right decision to keep the stuff in the pool and keep it about the kids, because as much as it is interesting to watch the parents because ultimately this is about their journey. It’s the first of many, many challenges you see and find in your life where you’re terrified and you have to push through that threshold of pain and discomfort to achieve something. So it feels like hopefully adults will see themselves in the kids anyway.
AF: The film includes some data as subtitles with an obvious intent of showing the importance of learning to swim. What other themes do you hope viewers take away?
Jones: Obviously the big call to action is it’s a big deal. The stakes are high. So this is not just about the joy of swimming. This is about the fact that half the people in the world don’t know how to swim, and that it is a completely preventable form of death for kids under four. And also, it’s the second leading cause of death for kids under 14. So this is one of the very few things in life that you can take control of and actually, through will and determination, save a life, save your life, save your kid’s life. So that’s kind of the big thing.
Of course, there are so many other takeaways. But for me, I just always think about Bill saying that we don’t want our kids to experience any pain. But we’re taking away this opportunity to see their own character, their own growth and development as a human being. And I think about that all the time, not just for my kid, but for myself. Like anything good that’s going to happen for me is going to be because I went through a really challenging, scary unknown. It’s weird how quickly we forget that, want to forget that and then forget that every time we’re working on something new.
AF: Is there a personal example that inspired your thinking?
Jones: So many failures. Oh gosh, I don’t even know. I’m an actor and have been rejected a million times. It’s just a part of the fabric of my life. Every audition I’ve ever been on, every movie I’ve ever tried to get made… You know, the first thing Will and I did together was Celeste and Jesse Forever. And we sold that movie four different times to studios that were shutting down all around town, because it was the end of, like, the mini major studio. And had we said, “Okay, you know what, screw it. Nobody wants this and we’re not going to make this,” we wouldn’t have made it. But eventually somebody wanted to make it for $840,000. We got it made. It doesn’t matter that we had been rejected by everybody or that it didn’t look the way we wanted it to look like. The experience of that changed our careers and our whole understanding of how to make movies. And that’s because we just were dogged about it.
AF: There’s one part of the film where Bill says that it’s not anything special about him but it’s the kids. Do you agree with him or do you think he’s not giving himself enough credit?
Jones: I do agree with him. I’m sure you’ve had this experience as a parent where you’re trying so hard to get your kid to care about something, or you’re explaining a math problem or whatever. And they’re like,” I don’t get it, I don’t get it.” But really, what we should be doing is getting them to want to get that answer. Getting them to be curious about the fundamental issue, as opposed to forcing them to try to want the answer. That said, Bill is being humble for sure, because he’s a fantastic teacher and is able to remind the kids that they just did something themselves and it makes them feel good. It’s so hard to excite the learner’s mind and he’s very good at it.
AF: How does this project align with your career goals behind the camera?
Jones: In some ways, storytelling is all kind of similar, whether it’s writing or acting or documentary. But I really love documentary because, as I said before, it forces me to be so present. There’s something so beautiful about watching a story unfold, knowing it’s happening, and being a witness to that. There’s also the responsibility of taking something very raw and hard to manage and crafting it into something someone can sit with, take in, digest, and understand the principles behind it. I mean, I think as a director, that is a giant gift—whether I direct something scripted or documentary—to see that it can work, that it can actually have an impact on people.