This week’s DOC NYC profiles begin with a look at the second of four new sections: Jock Docs, which spotlights athletes and athletics.
DOC NYC Jock Docs
9-MAN (pictured above)
Director: Ursula Liang
A variant of volleyball developed by Chinese immigrants to America as both an athletic pastime and a social outlet in a time of widespread anti-Chinese sentiment now serves to unite young men with their heritage.
Expected to attend: Ursula Liang
ALTHEA
Director: Rex Miller
WORLD PREMIERE
In the 1950s, long before Arthur Ashe or Venus and Serena Williams, Althea Gibson was the first African-American tennis player to be a World Champion.
Expected to attend: Rex Miller, producers Nancy Buirski and Elisabeth Haviland James, former NYC Mayor David Dinkins
HARDY
Director: Natasha Verma
NYC PREMIERE
Although Brooklyn’s Heather “The Heat” Hardy has only been boxing for a few years, she’s a world champion in the making—but first she has to be given the chance to prove herself in a sport that has been slow to open its doors to female athletes.
Expected to attend: Natasha Verma, film subject Heather Hardy
OPPOSITE FIELD
Director: Jay Shapiro
WORLD PREMIERE
In its nearly 70-year history, the Little League World Series has never hosted a team from Africa. The Ugandan team hopes to change that.
Expected to attend: Jay Shapiro, producer Nick Goldfarb, former Major League Baseball player and Uganda baseball supporter Derrek Lee
TOP SPIN
Directors: Sara Newens & Mina T. Son
WORLD PREMIERE
Three driven teenage athletes attempt to go for Olympic gold in the perpetually popular but underappreciated game of table tennis.
Expected to attend: Sara Newens, Mina T. Son, Executive Producers Jonathan Bricklin, Franck Raharinosy, Paul Herzan, film subjects Ariel Hsing, Erica Wu, and Lily Zhang
Why You Should Attend:
The best sports docs aren’t merely about their respective disciplines, but also about strong subjects and universal themes of dedication, perseverance, and the triumph over adversity that can appeal to larger audiences beyond die-hard fans alone. For those who still might be slightly intimidated, here’s a quick rundown:
Volleyball is a fairly young sport, developed in 1895 by a YMCA instructor in Holyoke MA as an indoor activity combining aspects of tennis and handball. As Ursula Liang’s film details, the 9-man variant emerged within Chinatowns across North America, with special tournaments serving dual purposes of athletic competition and social activity for Chinese immigrants. The sport’s popular annual event, the North American Chinese Invitational Vollyball Tournament, held its 70th edition in Las Vegas this past Labor Day weekend.
Modern tennis emerged between 1859-1865 in Birmingham, England, an update of a popular 16th century English and French indoor racquet game that had roots in 12th century France. Aside from a brief blip in 1926-1927, women did not compete in the sport on a professional level until 1941, and even then sporadically for the next 26 years until the Open Era began, when Grand Slam tournaments permitted pros to compete with amateurs. The Women’s Tennis Associate followed a few years later in 1973. As an amateur, Althea Gibson’s participation in the US Championships in 1950 as the first African-American player broke the color barrier in the sport. However, it wasn’t until 1959 when a male player, Bob Ryland, became the sport’s first African American professional player.
While boxing has origins dating as far back as the Sumerian civilization of the third millennium BCE, its modern incarnation first appears in England in the early 1500s, though codified rules didn’t emerge until 1743. Women didn’t enter the ring until the early 1700s, fighting women and men alike, with English Elizabeth Wilkinson claiming the first women’s world boxing championship title in 1722. While women’s boxing appeared as a demonstration sport at the 1904 Olympic Games, social mores resulted in the sport being banned for the better part of the 20th century. Despite a few attempts in the 1970s and 1980s to engender interest in the sport, it wasn’t until the general rise of professional women’s sports leagues in the late 1990s that women’s boxing really became established. The sport was finally included in the Olympics with 2012’s London games.
Little League began in 1939 as an outgrowth of America’s Pastime, centered around Pennsylvania for its first seven seasons. It officially became an international sport in 1951, with leagues emerging in British Columbia and Panama, and in 1957, Mexico became the first country other than the US to win the Little League World Series. A few years later, in 1960, West Germany became the first European nation to play in the World Series, while 1967 saw victory for the first team from Asia, Japan.
The game of table tennis is said to have emerged in 1760s China, though some argue that the British first developed it. The commonly-known name of “ping-pong” became a trademarked name by a British manufacturer in 1901, who sold the US rights to Parker Brothers in the 1920s. The first World Championships were hosted by London in 1926, but it took until 1988 for the popular sport to enter the Olympics. Famously, the game proved to be a major factor in the re-establishment of international relations between the US and China, when the 1971 US table tennis team became the first official American delegation to visit Beijing since 1949.
More Info:
To purchase tickets, click on the individual titles above, and follow links for ticketing; or check out the new options for Passes.
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