Documentary "In the Game" shows struggles of Kelly High School girls team
Film focuses on difficulties of girls playing
soccer in economically disadvantaged areas
By Patrick Z. McGavin
Films can be providential experiences, the products of a series of happy accidents or chance encounters.
Six years ago the Chicago documentary filmmaker Maria Finitzo conceived of making a film about the legacy of Title IX, the federal law that prohibited discrimination based on gender in government -funded programs.
In particular, Finitzo was interested in studying its enforcement and impact in historically disenfranchised communities.
Her research took her throughout Chicago. A conversation with two soccer coaches at Walter Payton, a high-academic performance school that produced Michigan All-American Corinne Harris, led her to the story of Stan Mietus, the coach of the girls and boys soccer programs at Kelly High School in Brighton Park on the city's southwest side.
"With respect to Title IX, there was a lot of study that showed girls of color were still being left behind," Finitzo said. "I wanted to see if that was the case." Her interactions with Mietus, a skilled and dedicated coach, had a pronounced impact and the project subtly shifted. "I started following the story of Stan, the team and Kelly," she said.
Finitzo began shooting in the spring of 2010 and returned each of the next four years. With her small crew, she immersed herself in the daily rituals of the team, from their early dawn practice schedule in the gym to the games and beyond that captured the larger aspirations of the players.
The resulting work, In the Game, is both an intimate labor of love and a poignant and often powerful study of hope and ambition in overcoming severe social disadvantages.
The film has its theatrical premiere Saturday, Aug. 22, at the Gene Siskel Film Center (164 N. State St.), at 3 p.m. It also plays Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. Finitzo, Mietus and several of the key players are going to participate in a post-screening discussion on Saturday and Sunday. The 6 p.m. Monday screening is being done in conjunction with the Illinois Youth Soccer Association (IYSA).
Significantly, the movie is a production of the Chicago-based Kartemquin Films, the company that also produced Steve James' landmark Chicago basketball documentary, Hoop Dreams. Peter Gilbert, the cinematographer and producer of Hoop Dreams, worked on the film.
Soccer is the movie's structuring device, animating the shared dreams and desires of the players to move beyond their restricted lives.
As Kelly's principal points out in the film, the school is 83 percent Latino, and 86 percent of its students live below the poverty line.
"It's not really about what it takes to be a great soccer player or watching a team making a great run in pursuit of a state championship," Finitzo said. "It's a film about race, class and gender."
The movie is loaded with moments of heartbreak and wonder, like an overpowering moment during the team's award banquet as a player writes a poem to her parents to show her appreciation of their own dedication and support, only to find herself overcome with emotion and unable to finish. The camera observes the other players likewise affected, a tacit understanding of their shared emotional plight.
The most chilling moment, the team's elation at having a legitimate field to play on at McKinley Park is shattered by a masked gunman from a rival gang who threatens to shoot if the team returns to the field.
As the soccer footage recedes in the background, the film shifts to the interior lives of three players: Elizabeth Moreno, a charismatic and natural leader who is the team captain; Alicia Herrera, a skilled, intense competitor who sets the emotional tone; and Maria Garcia-Jimenez, a defender who embodies the team's unflagging spirit.
These young women prove remarkably empathic, as expressive in front of the camera as they are dynamic on the field of play. They combine an openness with a steely pragmatism in revealing their longings and hopes.
"I wanted them to know the truth," Herrera said.
"At first everything about the movie seemed a little surreal,” she said. “I didn't think it was going to be an actual documentary, with a premiere and everything. It was really good to have somebody interested. Maria asked questions that nobody really asked before.
“The fact that they wanted to make it into a movie was really interesting. I was telling them it was a really good feeling that somebody was keeping up with me."
Moreno said because of its long production history, the movie existed for most of them more in the abstract. Once the film had its international premiere at a film festival in Madrid and they could track the response to the film, the actualization of the movie's existence hit home.
Seeing the film at a private screening at Kartemquin proved overwhelming.
"We're on the center stage, we have the spotlight," Moreno said. "There are all of these stereotypes about Kelly, but in the documentary you get to see how amazing all of these kids are.
"You see the potential we all have."
Mietus's boys team is a city powerhouse. The Trojans won the city title three years ago and finished runner-up last year. The girls captured the city in 1997 and last reached the city title game in 2002.
Finitzo said the two programs illustrate the cultural in many Latino families.
"What I discovered is that young men are encouraged to play and women are not," Finitzo said. "The problem that Stan has now is many of these kids have never played soccer until they get to Kelly. Stan doesn't give up on them. He just tries to keep them motivated."
Many of the players shown in the film are first-generation children of immigrants.
"Our parents don't really want us out there playing sports," Garcia-Jimenez said. "I was the first one in my family to be out there playing."
For its participants, In the Game is a deeply empowering work.
"It helped me feel important," Garcia-Jimenez said.
Soccer is a metaphor, Finitzo said, and Mietus shows how difficult it is to compete without resources.
It proved apt for the director who experienced her own significant difficulties in raising the necessary funding to get the film completed.
"I really believed deeply in the story I was trying to tell," she said. "If things gets tough, you can quit. These kids couldn't quit.”
Kelly will host its own special screening October 1.
The movie affected the coach who plays a role in it.
"I've been coaching for 21 years, and I've never had time to reflect," Mietus said.
"This film gave me time to reflect. It was a powerful movie. These girls have so many obstacles they have to deal with every day. They are still positive despite everything. They look forward to life even though there's so much against them."
On Monday, Mietus's boys team will play its first game on its new field.
More than 100 boys tried out for the varsity, which will lead to a packed Kelly sideline due to the coach’s no-cut policy.
He said he is going to find a spot for all of them.
Film focuses on difficulties of girls playing
soccer in economically disadvantaged areas
By Patrick Z. McGavin
Films can be providential experiences, the products of a series of happy accidents or chance encounters.
Six years ago the Chicago documentary filmmaker Maria Finitzo conceived of making a film about the legacy of Title IX, the federal law that prohibited discrimination based on gender in government -funded programs.
In particular, Finitzo was interested in studying its enforcement and impact in historically disenfranchised communities.
Her research took her throughout Chicago. A conversation with two soccer coaches at Walter Payton, a high-academic performance school that produced Michigan All-American Corinne Harris, led her to the story of Stan Mietus, the coach of the girls and boys soccer programs at Kelly High School in Brighton Park on the city's southwest side.
"With respect to Title IX, there was a lot of study that showed girls of color were still being left behind," Finitzo said. "I wanted to see if that was the case." Her interactions with Mietus, a skilled and dedicated coach, had a pronounced impact and the project subtly shifted. "I started following the story of Stan, the team and Kelly," she said.
Finitzo began shooting in the spring of 2010 and returned each of the next four years. With her small crew, she immersed herself in the daily rituals of the team, from their early dawn practice schedule in the gym to the games and beyond that captured the larger aspirations of the players.
The resulting work, In the Game, is both an intimate labor of love and a poignant and often powerful study of hope and ambition in overcoming severe social disadvantages.
The film has its theatrical premiere Saturday, Aug. 22, at the Gene Siskel Film Center (164 N. State St.), at 3 p.m. It also plays Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. Finitzo, Mietus and several of the key players are going to participate in a post-screening discussion on Saturday and Sunday. The 6 p.m. Monday screening is being done in conjunction with the Illinois Youth Soccer Association (IYSA).
Significantly, the movie is a production of the Chicago-based Kartemquin Films, the company that also produced Steve James' landmark Chicago basketball documentary, Hoop Dreams. Peter Gilbert, the cinematographer and producer of Hoop Dreams, worked on the film.
Soccer is the movie's structuring device, animating the shared dreams and desires of the players to move beyond their restricted lives.
As Kelly's principal points out in the film, the school is 83 percent Latino, and 86 percent of its students live below the poverty line.
"It's not really about what it takes to be a great soccer player or watching a team making a great run in pursuit of a state championship," Finitzo said. "It's a film about race, class and gender."
The movie is loaded with moments of heartbreak and wonder, like an overpowering moment during the team's award banquet as a player writes a poem to her parents to show her appreciation of their own dedication and support, only to find herself overcome with emotion and unable to finish. The camera observes the other players likewise affected, a tacit understanding of their shared emotional plight.
The most chilling moment, the team's elation at having a legitimate field to play on at McKinley Park is shattered by a masked gunman from a rival gang who threatens to shoot if the team returns to the field.
As the soccer footage recedes in the background, the film shifts to the interior lives of three players: Elizabeth Moreno, a charismatic and natural leader who is the team captain; Alicia Herrera, a skilled, intense competitor who sets the emotional tone; and Maria Garcia-Jimenez, a defender who embodies the team's unflagging spirit.
These young women prove remarkably empathic, as expressive in front of the camera as they are dynamic on the field of play. They combine an openness with a steely pragmatism in revealing their longings and hopes.
"I wanted them to know the truth," Herrera said.
"At first everything about the movie seemed a little surreal,” she said. “I didn't think it was going to be an actual documentary, with a premiere and everything. It was really good to have somebody interested. Maria asked questions that nobody really asked before.
“The fact that they wanted to make it into a movie was really interesting. I was telling them it was a really good feeling that somebody was keeping up with me."
Moreno said because of its long production history, the movie existed for most of them more in the abstract. Once the film had its international premiere at a film festival in Madrid and they could track the response to the film, the actualization of the movie's existence hit home.
Seeing the film at a private screening at Kartemquin proved overwhelming.
"We're on the center stage, we have the spotlight," Moreno said. "There are all of these stereotypes about Kelly, but in the documentary you get to see how amazing all of these kids are.
"You see the potential we all have."
Mietus's boys team is a city powerhouse. The Trojans won the city title three years ago and finished runner-up last year. The girls captured the city in 1997 and last reached the city title game in 2002.
Finitzo said the two programs illustrate the cultural in many Latino families.
"What I discovered is that young men are encouraged to play and women are not," Finitzo said. "The problem that Stan has now is many of these kids have never played soccer until they get to Kelly. Stan doesn't give up on them. He just tries to keep them motivated."
Many of the players shown in the film are first-generation children of immigrants.
"Our parents don't really want us out there playing sports," Garcia-Jimenez said. "I was the first one in my family to be out there playing."
For its participants, In the Game is a deeply empowering work.
"It helped me feel important," Garcia-Jimenez said.
Soccer is a metaphor, Finitzo said, and Mietus shows how difficult it is to compete without resources.
It proved apt for the director who experienced her own significant difficulties in raising the necessary funding to get the film completed.
"I really believed deeply in the story I was trying to tell," she said. "If things gets tough, you can quit. These kids couldn't quit.”
Kelly will host its own special screening October 1.
The movie affected the coach who plays a role in it.
"I've been coaching for 21 years, and I've never had time to reflect," Mietus said.
"This film gave me time to reflect. It was a powerful movie. These girls have so many obstacles they have to deal with every day. They are still positive despite everything. They look forward to life even though there's so much against them."
On Monday, Mietus's boys team will play its first game on its new field.
More than 100 boys tried out for the varsity, which will lead to a packed Kelly sideline due to the coach’s no-cut policy.
He said he is going to find a spot for all of them.