A scene from Keepers of the Game. Photo by Eliot Buntaine / Keepers of the Game
Film critic Andy Webster of The New York Times offers a favorable review of Keepers of the Game, a documentary that follows an all-Mohawk girls lacrosse team in New York:
If you’ve cheered on a daughter at a high school sporting event, you’ll identify with Judd Ehrlich’s exhilarating documentary “Keepers of the Game.” If you’ve lived in a small town, as do the resilient athletes in this movie, you’ll probably connect even more. And if you are a fan of lacrosse, a game originated by Native Americans, you may relate most of all.
YouTube: DICK's Sporting Goods presents: Keepers Of The Game Trailer
“Keepers of the Game” is about the Salmon River Shamrocks, a girls’ varsity lacrosse team near Akwesasne Mohawk Territory, in Canada and upstate New York, during their 2015 season. The pressures aren’t just on the field. There is the historical oppression of the American Indian, a fact never lost on the players. Boys call a local radio station to express doubts about the suitability of girls for lacrosse. Tsieboo Herne, a high school senior and the team captain, first embraced the game to fight depression. The ninth-grade goalie Marcella Thomas, who lives on a reservation with her mother and who once found her father’s dead body after a horseback-riding accident, grapples with self-doubt. And there are the Shamrocks’ regional rivals, the Massena Central Red Raiders, whom they face in a climactic championship.Get the Story:
Review: ‘Keepers of the Game’ Sings of Young Women and Lacrosse (The New York Times 4/22) Another Review:
Native girls find themselves through lacrosse in 'Keepers of the Game' (The Los Angeles Times 4/21) Also Today:
'Keepers of the Game' breaks new ground for sports storytelling around women (ESPN 4/20)
Meet the filmmaker behind Tribeca documentary on Native American girls lacrosse team (ESPN 4/19)
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