Supported by Hollywood Suite
July | Going for Gold: Sports Season
Smells like team spirit! Gear up for the upcoming 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games with this month’s collection featuring sports on screen. From basketball, skiing, swimming, figure skating, track & field, and more, these works showcase fictional and true stories of Canadian athletes in action.
Content Warning:
Some of the projects included in this collection deal with topics that may be distressing. Viewer discretion is advised – please check ratings and warnings on individual selections before engaging.
Across the Line
Director: Director X
In this 2015 drama from Director X, a young, Black NHL hopeful (Stephan James) living in a racially divided community finds his career prospects in jeopardy when tensions in his community come to a head. The film was shot in Nova Scotia and based on the 1989 Cole Harbour District High School race riots, which writer Floyd Kane witnessed first-hand.
All-Round Champion
Directors: Graeme Lynch & Grant Greschuk
It’s the ultimate event for ten of the best young athletes in North America: instead of competing in their own sport, these future Olympians must master their competition’s events. Does a downhill skier have the drive to master powerlifting? Can a karate champ score on the hockey ice? Whether it’s fencing, snow kiting, artistic swimming or hurdles, these athletes will overcome adversity, display sportsmanship, and prove they have what it takes to be crowned the next All-Round Champion.
Copper Mountain
Director: David Mitchell
This early ‘80s made-for-tv comedy stars a young Jim Carrey and Alan Thicke as Bobby and Jackson, buddies from Grimsby, Ontario who take a vacation to a ski resort in Colorado. While Jackson competes in a ProAm race, Bobby vies for the affections of any and every woman he can find.
Selected by Hollywood Suite
Handle With Care: The Legend of the Notic Streetball Crew
Directors: Jeremy Schaulin-Rioux & Kirk Thomas
Handle With Care chronicles the rise, fall and rebirth of The Notic, an upstart streetball collective from Canada in the early 2000s. While their creative basketball moves brought them global fame as teenagers, it set them at odds with the status quo in a battle involving self-expression, race and rejection. Driven by a twenty-year quest to finish their mixtape trilogy, the documentary charts how the group of friends from Vancouver played outside the confines of the NBA yet still left an indelible imprint on the game forever.
Heritage Minutes: John Longboat
Director: Jason Brennan
This Heritage Minute follows the life of Onondaga long-distance runner Gagwe:gih, whose name means “Everything.” Known around the world as Tom Longboat, he was one of the most celebrated athletes of the early 20th century.
I Have Nothing
Director: Carolyn Taylor
I Have Nothing follows comedian Carolyn Taylor on a quest to choreograph the perfect pairs figure skating routine to Whitney Houston’s “I Have Nothing.” Motivated by a teenage obsession for the 1988 Olympics (but with no skating knowledge or ability), Carolyn enlists the help of friends, experts and figure skating legends to realize her lofty goal.
Selected by Hollywood Suite
Keep Pushing
Directors: Dane Collison & Mike Bradley
Keep Pushing takes you behind the scenes of Canada’s National Skateboarding Team as they prepare to compete at international events. Follow the journeys of each skateboarder as they push themselves in pursuit of becoming some of the first Olympic skateboarders.
Mighty Jerome
Director: Charles Officer
From acclaimed filmmaker Charles Officer comes the story of the rise, fall and redemption of Harry Jerome, Canada’s most record-setting track and field star. Gorgeous monochrome imagery, impassioned interviews and astonishing archival footage are used to tell the triumphant and compelling story of what Harry Jerome’s own coach called “the greatest comeback in track and field history.”
Nadia, Butterfly
Director: Pascal Plante
While young and in her prime, Nadia decides to retire from pro swimming after the Olympic Games; to escape a rigid life of sacrifice. After her very last race, Nadia drifts into nights of excess punctuated by episodes of self-doubt. But even this transitional numbness cannot conceal her true inner quest: defining her identity outside the world of elite sports.
Sisterhood Softball
Director: Farhiya Ahmed
Following the first all-female Muslim softball league in North America, Sisterhood Softball depicts a league that empowers women through sports in a community where women traditionally don’t participate and are seen as disempowered by those outside of their communities.
