This month we find ourselves especially inspired by the determination of women — perhaps because it’s Women’s History Month, and we’re feeling particularly conscious of the struggles women face just to live the lives they desire. Whether in their personal or professional lives, women have learned to be tenacious to achieve their goals. As such, we applaud stories of women who refuse to stand down in the face of adversity.

In our VOD pick for this month — Kimberly Levin’s feature debut, “Runoff” — a farm wife is faced with impossible choices as she attempts to provide for her children and husband, and secure their livelihood in the wake of a financial recession. Despite the odds, she never gives up in her struggle for the family’s survival.

The non-fiction pick, “Willful,” offers insight into many different stories of perseverance. The series consists of interviews with a variety of creatives, each sharing how they work, what drives them, and how they ensure success in their respective careers.

Meanwhile, Indian web series “The ‘Other’ Love Story” exemplifies the quieter, more personal battles that women can face. Charting the young love that develops between two girls who live in the same neighborhood in 1990s Bangalore, it is the first Indian web series about same-sex love, and writer-director Roopa Rao had to persevere to bring the project to fruition.

Here are our VOD and web series selections for March.

VOD

“Runoff” — Written and Directed by Kimberly Levin

With a background in biochemistry, “Runoff” writer, director, and co-editor Kimberly Levin drew on that experience to make her feature debut. “The seeds of the story are based on something that happened to me when I was working as a field biochemist in Kentucky,” she told us in an interview, in which she also described some of the difficulties she faced in making the movie. “It led me to obsess about this idea that as human beings we make decisions in a temporal way. We have the ability to problem-solve, and to judge how our choices will play out over time … Am I choosing what’s best for right at this moment? Ten minutes or a year from now? … Am I choosing for myself, my family, my neighbors?” It’s questions like these that the film’s lead character, Betty (Joanne Kelly), must reconcile with.

The film focuses on a rural America farming family facing financial hardship, and the pressures of an evolving agricultural industry that threaten to engulf them. Betty — haunted by the specter of money troubles, exacerbated by her husband’s illness, and mounting medical bills — is driven to act, and when another farmer offers her good pay in exchange for illegal disposal of hazardous materials, she must weigh up her principles against the necessity spawned by her desperate situation.

You can purchase “Runoff” from Vimeo, iTunes, YouTube, and elsewhere — see the film’s website for details.

Web Series

“Willful” — Co-Created by Alison Garwood-Jones

Every creative — writers, artists, photographers, and more — has their own unique tale about how they got their first opportunities in their chosen field, and progressed on the path to manifesting their dreams. This series of interviews, presented by co-creator Alison Garwood-Jones, seeks to open up some of these stories, partly in celebration of others’ successes, and in an attempt to share advice with other creatives struggling with the process, financing their art, and other roadblocks. Many of those featured are women running the gamut of the creative industries: photographer Connie Tsang, landscape designer Nicolette Linton, independent opera company founders/directors Rachel Krehm and Aria Umezawa, mystery writer Angela Misri, and many more.

It’s hard not to be inspired by the way these women strive to create their art. Garwood-Jones and her co-creator, Yann Yap, said the series’ name was chosen “because there’s a current of willfulness running through every creative person we’ve ever met — a certain scrappiness and determination. ‘Willful’ is something you have to be if you want to make a real difference in the world.” Certainly, watching this series spurs us on in our own endeavors.

You can watch the series of interviews at “Willful’s” website.

“The ‘Other’ Love Story” — Written and Directed by Roopa Rao

Set in the 1990s, “The ‘Other’ Love Story” portrays young couple Aachal (Shweta Gupta) and Aadya (Spoorthi Gumaste) who meet and fall in love in Bangalore, India, exchanging love letters, and risking their privacy for landline phone conversations held in the middle of the house — in a time before the intimacy allowed by cellphones, and social media apps. Series creator Roopa Rao chose the era partly out of fondness of the pre-digital age but there was also another reason: “[It] is my way of exploring how such a story would pan out in a time when they didn’t have so much information available to them,” she explained in an interview. “It must have just come to them and they must have just naturally acted upon it.” Rather than feel discouraged to explore their love, Aachal and Aadya fight for it.

Aachal and Aadya face some familial and societal disapproval of their relationship, and the story behind the making of the series mirrors their struggle, too. Having written the story 10 years before she decided it was finally time to make it, Rao says she encountered many difficulties in getting the project financed, due to prospective producers’ reticence to being associated with the subject matter. Casting the lead roles proved equally challenging for the same reason, because many actresses’ families disapproved. Nevertheless, Rao persisted, and turned to crowdfunding for part of the series’ financing. The result is a 12-part success story that won Rao the Best Director award at the 2016 NYC Web Fest, and which inspires women across the world to never give up in the face of setbacks.

“The ‘Other’ Love Story” is available to watch on YouTube.