NYU’s Sports Film Festival returned to campus last weekend for its sixth iteration, featuring industry panels and over a dozen screenings, as well as dishing out over $4,000 in awards to local and international filmmakers.
The festival, hosted jointly by NYU Athletics and the NYU Production Lab, took place April 17-19 and included screenings of more than a dozen student and independent short films at the Cantor Film Center. Two feature-length documentaries also premiered, followed by panels with the filmmakers — Q&As followed almost all showings. General panels on Saturday featured athletes and media industry professionals. The festival also screened shorts made by students currently enrolled in a sports documentary course, before the festival closed with an awards ceremony. There, the organizers bestowed thousands of dollars to winners in NYU-specific categories and open categories, which included filmmakers from across the world.
“It really celebrates the intersection of sports and film,” Niko Spiridellis, SPS junior and director of the festival said. “It gives people from different sectors of interest a place to connect, talk and celebrate together — people from all over the world.”
Since its inaugural festival in 2021, hosted virtually during the COVID-19 pandemic, the program has expanded significantly in size and scope. This year, two feature-length films had their world premiere: “Unraveling George,” directed by Mike Tollin, and “Open Book,” directed by former college basketball coach Emanuel Richardson. This year’s festival also introduced a new sports photography competition, which was won by Tisch junior Nicolás Galvis for his black-and-white boxing action shot “Fight Night.”
The festival kicked off on Friday with a pitch contest hosted by industry judges including Jerome Williams, a former NBA player who now works as a television producer and coach. Filmmakers screened short sports documentaries — ones that they hoped to expand into full-length films — for a $500 cash prize and the chance to meet with the festival’s producers. After the finalists pitched their ideas, the festival hosted a rapid-fire wild card round where audience members pitched film concepts on the spot.
The student finalists appeared in front of the panel, and Tisch junior Nic Chang took home the $500 jury prize award for his short sports documentary, “Jürgen Locadia.” The short follows the titular soccer player who led the Curaçao national football team to qualify for its first World Cup this summer.
The second day included screenings of six of the festival’s 13 short films. “SHOWTIME,” directed by Francesco Giardiello from Italy, later won $300 after being selected the best non-NYU narrative film while “Bleeding Edge,” directed by South Korean filmmaker Daeyoung Kim, won the $300 award for best NYU narrative film. American directors MacPherson Christopher and Paul Rosenfeld’s “La Liga,” which follows immigrant dairy workers in rural Vermont who persevere through hardships with soccer, won the $1,000 overall jury grand prize at the end of the festival.
Sunday’s programming opened up the floor to films created by students in a sports documentary workshop course taught by Tisch professor Ronnie Kay during the spring semester. Across the eight films created by 10 students, topics ranged from a profile of NYU Athletics staff members and student athletes to a behind-the-scenes at NFL teams’ media relations departments.
One of the eight films was directed by Tisch senior Georgia Cohen and follows the story of track and field assistant coach Grace Richardson’s attempt to represent her Irish nationality. Cohen aimed to highlight Richardson’s passion and commitment to keeping the sport in her life.
“Seeing how she did that was really interesting to me,” Cohen told WSN. “After hearing about her passion for it, I was like, ‘I definitely want to showcase her talent and relationship with all of the girls.’”
According to Kay, her course is the world’s first collegiate sports documentary program. She is currently partnering with FIFA to provide internships for 21 students ahead of the World Cup this summer, for which MetLife Stadium will be hosting matches.
“Sports excite us,” Kay told WSN. “Sports give us a timeline. They talk about failure and about winning. They inspire us. But the real story is about the people and not about the scoreboard. And this is what you’re learning here.”
The final day continued with screening the remaining seven short films. As one of the partnerships for the festival, the network SportsNet New York partnered with organizers to broadcast a special selection of films, including Tisch alum Cal Galicia’s “Spit Out Your Bones.”
“What’s great about a sports film is you know who the hero is, you know what they’re trying to win or trying to accomplish, and then everything that’s happened in the movie is either moving them toward that goal or keeping them from that goal,” John Tintori, a director and screenwriter who serves on the festival’s advisory board, said. “That’s basic, good storytelling.”
Noah Kim contributed reporting.
Contact Sherry Chen and Sayako Ikeda at [email protected].