I had the great pleasure to watch this movie with the audience being the director, the coach, and we sat directly behind the current Roosevelt Roughriders girl's basketball team! What an amazing movie and experience!
This is one of those movies that if it were scripted out it would be written off as too corny to be realistic. The obvious comparison would be Hoop Dreams, yet I think this movie is far better. The camera is hand-held mini-DV, the shooting goes in and out of focus, and the overall camera technique is less than polished, but this adds rather than subtracts from the movie much like it did for Blair Witch. The film is shot in an incredibly intimate way, drawing you deep into the team and making the audience an honorary Roughrider. There are no villains, though in the hands of another film-maker there are plenty of opportunities to have created villains. This choice blends well with the appeal for many of women's sports over men's and unites the film, audience, and team together cohesively, allowing the audience to understand and feel everything that the girls on the screen are going through.
I believe this is very likely the Oscar winning documentary for this year and may usher in a new story telling direction in documentary films.
This is one of those movies that if it were scripted out it would be written off as too corny to be realistic. The obvious comparison would be Hoop Dreams, yet I think this movie is far better. The camera is hand-held mini-DV, the shooting goes in and out of focus, and the overall camera technique is less than polished, but this adds rather than subtracts from the movie much like it did for Blair Witch. The film is shot in an incredibly intimate way, drawing you deep into the team and making the audience an honorary Roughrider. There are no villains, though in the hands of another film-maker there are plenty of opportunities to have created villains. This choice blends well with the appeal for many of women's sports over men's and unites the film, audience, and team together cohesively, allowing the audience to understand and feel everything that the girls on the screen are going through.
I believe this is very likely the Oscar winning documentary for this year and may usher in a new story telling direction in documentary films.