About a Girl is a nine-minute short film directed by Brian Percival. In 2001, it won the BAFTA Award for Best Short Film. It also won an award at the Edinburgh International Film Festival for Best British Short, the TCM Classic Shorts Award prize at the London Film Festival, and the Jury Prize at the Raindance Film Festival. The script was written by Julie Rutterford and the film was produced by Janey de Nordwall. The leading role was played by Ashley Thewlis.

Plot

About a Girl opens with a striking shot of a silhouette against a skyline of clouds above a field of a girl singing the Britney Spears song "Stronger" and doing the dance routine. It cuts abruptly to a close-up of the girl talking to the camera. She is walking against a backdrop of Manchester's industrial landscape, talking non-stop, mixing wry statements about stardom and singers with random quotes from her parents and descriptions of her life: her relationship with her dad, her frustrations with her mum, her desire to become a famous singer, and the band she has formed with her friends. Her monologue is interrupted and intercut with different scenes of her with her family and her dad; her in a perfume department, sitting on a bench singing "Stronger" again, and on the back of a bus with her friends singing "Oops!... I Did It Again" (also by Britney Spears) and doing the dance routine featured in the music video for the song.