Sports documentaries to kick off your week
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Ryan Sidhoo is a Vancouver-based documentary filmmaker who's an expert at connecting personal and intimate narratives to larger cultural trends. His docu-series True North: Inside the Rise of Toronto Basketball, produced for the NFB and Red Bull Media House, won a People's Voice Award at last year's Webby Awards. Ryan has also produced films for Vice Media, MTV and NBCUniversal. We had the pleasure of working with Ryan when we commissioned his short documentary Down with the King for our Tell Our Stories campaign. Today, we're diving deeper into Ryan's repertoire of sports films. — Shazlin Rahman
The Raptors' NBA victory in 2019 has put Toronto on the global stage. But away from the spotlight and the cameras are the neighbourhood courts and high school gyms where coaches, mentors and parents nurture young aspiring athletes vying for a spot on a professional team. In this new feature-length documentary (parts of which were previously released as a web series), Ryan Sidhoo teases out the journeys of different individuals, the sacrifices they make and what brings them to the court each and every day. — SR
True North premieres as a free stream on NFB.org on April 28, 2020.
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The neighbourhood courts where streetball is played are known as the place where basketball is at its purest. There are no team colours, and rules around who gets to play and how long a game lasts are unspoken, yet understood and obeyed. Here, players hustle and improvise to score shots while putting on a show for spectators. The subject of Ryan Sidhoo's short is Joey Haywood, a streetball legend hoping to make the cut on an NBA team. This episode was part of the Street Legends series for Vice Sports. — SR
This episode is available for free on YouTube.
International streetball legend Joey Haywood a.k.a. “King Handles” honed his skills as a teenager on the courts in Vancouver. In documenting Haywood's personal journey to be the best in the game, Ryan Sidhoo weaves a powerful narrative of the polarizing dynamics of race relations and a growing divide in the city. This film was commissioned by FRIENDS for the Tell Our Stories campaign. — SR
This short doc is available for free at Tell Our Stories.