This Is Endometriosis, a volunteer-made documentary short by filmmaker and photographer Georgie Wileman, won the BAFTA for Best British Short Film at the 2026 ceremony on February 22 – bringing endometriosis awareness to one of the biggest stages in the entertainment industry.
The film grew out of Wileman’s own experience with severe endometriosis and adenomyosis. While homebound and using a wheelchair, she searched for information online and found only stock photos of women with full makeup holding their stomachs – imagery that felt worlds away from her reality. She began documenting her experience through self-portraits and eventually expanded the project into a broader movement and documentary, made entirely by volunteers with no budget.
“You spend so much of your life being called a liar as someone with endometriosis,” Wileman said in the BAFTA winners’ room. “It’s a brutal disease and the pain is worse than child labour, it can disable you, yet the general awareness is that it’s a disease of painful periods and that’s just not true.”
The film’s production was itself shaped by the disease it documents – Wileman’s condition worsened during filming, confining her back to a wheelchair and changing the direction and timeline of the project. “I think what we ended up with is a film that feels so true to the endometriosis experience, not only with what it’s saying but also with how it was made,” she told Directors Notes.
Even her dress at the ceremony made a statement – designed by her brother Ralf Wileman, it featured the phrase “fund endometriosis research” woven into the fabric and was purposefully red to symbolise internal bleeding.
