Who knew that one of the most important figures in U.S. history had a seriously mean backhand on the basketball court? Glenn Kaino’s documentary Hoops, Hopes & Dreams follows the untold story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who, alongside a team of sharp civil rights activists, hit the basketball court to rally the community and engage members of the movement.
The documentary originally debuted at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year and subsequently won the Best Documentary Short Award at the Cleveland International Film Festival and the Honorable Mention Award at the Hamptons International Film Festival. Through interviews with Jemele Hill, Andrew Young, and Reggie Love, and through animation to bolster the narrative, the doc short examines justice, the efficacy of President Obama’s campaign, and the importance of sports as political activism.
Below, Deadline speaks to Kaino and producer Alexys Feaster about how the creative team blended animation, historical excavation, and interviews to shed new light on Dr. King.
DEADLINE: Once you sourced the story about Andrew Young and Martin Luther King Jr. playing basketball together, how did you parse this out once you had the idea in your head that you were making this into a documentary short film?
GLENN KAINO: Right, I had never heard that story before until Andrew told me about it. But also, I’m a King student, not much of a King scholar. So, the first thing I did was assemble my team, Michael Latt, myself and Alexys. We contacted actual King scholars, and not many people heard this story either. So, then we were like, this could be a very special moment and a story about building community in a unique way. And in the process of making a documentary, you sort of find the story in the process of working through all the material. We filmed Andrew Young and Alexys, and I traveled the country filming a bunch of people who didn’t get into the final film, but about a dozen people really helped us shape what ended up being in the final film.
DEADLINE: Alexys, so you learn about this project, what did you know ahead of time?
ALEXYS FEASTER: Like Glenn, I never heard this story before. I have some friends over at the African American History Museum who oversee the entire sports floor. So, I called them immediately and said, “Have you heard of this? Do you have any footage of this?” And they, too, had never heard of it, seen it, knew nothing about it. So, I think my first thought was, “Is it true? If no one has any footage, if no one has any record of it, did it really happen?” But then my second thought was, “Well, of course he did.” When you really think about the stories and the history, I know I grew up in Southeast DC, and I know how I was taught about Dr. King: that he went and marched on Selma and had people follow him down the street. But when you think about it, obviously that’s not how you build community. It couldn’t have happened solely that way.
Once I learned that Andrew Young spoke to Glenn about playing the game and how they used it to unify people and to go ahead of them before they would march and protest and go into communities, I was like, “That makes perfect sense.” Basketball is what unites people in so many ways, so for him to get people to follow him, he had to meet them where they are.
So, it made sense once you start thinking through the history: we know that he had to have done something to build community that we weren’t taught about. And so, it just seemed, for it to be basketball, it just really hit home for sure.
KAINO: And to your point, Alexys, when Ambassador Young was telling us the story, and he talked so specifically about the piece we then illustrated in the film about him putting the move on a defended player and shooting with his left hand, I was like, “That’s a level of specificity that makes me believe that it’s true.”
DEADLINE: Where did the Obama playing basketball part come in?
KAINO: So, we started with Ambassador Young as the anchor, talking about the story of Dr. King. Our process was to chase down important moments in cultural and civil rights history, when basketball became a catalyst for connection. Some of those included modern NBA stories, and others included different stories we researched but didn’t get to shoot. President Obama was quickly at the top of that list. I’m a big fan of basketball and of President Obama, and I knew he played basketball. And then I’ll hand it over to Alexys because she has a very specific relationship working with President Obama in basketball.
But I think just from a directorial perspective, once we had a bunch of stuff in the can and was ready to edit, I think that we all felt that those two stories and the reverberation and the passing of the baton, so to speak, between those iconic leaders, those were the two best stories that really connected together and made a cohesive moment that we wanted to bring forth.
FEASTER: When I got a call from Michael and met Glenn, and they started to talk about the project, my initial thought was that this was my golden moment to bring in my Obama basketball history and experience. I had a role in President Obama’s campaign, leading his celebrity strategy, because we knew that athletes and entertainers are the catalysts that help move voters and kind of shift opinions. One of the things that was really important to President Obama in addition to the fact that he was clearly a hooper, everyone knows he loves the game, he was playing basketball in Chicago pre him being the President of the United States, and so as we talked to some of his friends like Reggie Love, who was my former colleague who I knew played with him on the court and Michael Strautmanis who was one of our advisors as we were running the campaign, it was an obvious opportunity to say, “Well, let’s tell the story of how Obama did the same thing.” It’s how he, again, met people where they are.
But it was exciting because one of my roles was convincing people to support President Obama in his second term. And to do that, we created a coalition called Athletes for Obama. Back in 2011, there was a basketball lockout, and during that lockout, we engaged a lot of NBA players. So we talk a bit about that within the storytelling, but it also kind of lends to what Glenn was sharing, and as it relates to some of the other folks that we interviewed, as we then got to talk to actual players about how the game inspired them to be social activists, looking at people like President Obama.
So, it was just a natural tie-in to tell his part of the story, because I think young people today are going to resonate more with knowing that the first Black President played ball. But to tie that to Dr. King, too, will also allow Dr. King’s legacy to be expanded amongst the youth and amongst people who also follow President Obama.
DEADLINE: Why use animation as a storytelling tool for this documentary?
KAINO: Mostly the lack of source material for the basketball playing. Michael and I flew out to see Ambassador Young in Atlanta, and in the middle of the interview, he told us he was a photographer for the movement, too. And Michael and I both looked at each other like, “Oh, he must have the photo.” So, Michael asked him if we could get a photo of this moment, and he said there wasn’t one because he couldn’t take photos while he was on the court playing basketball. So, we walked away from the interview and called everyone we knew to see if anyone had a photo, but we couldn’t find any. But I had already worked with this animator before, his name is Kirill Yeretsky, and he’s getting a lot of love for our film, which is great, he’s a huge basketball fanatic. When the Kobe animated film [Dear Basketball] came out some years ago, he called me and said, “If you ever have a basketball movie, you have to let me animate it.” And when he put together our team, he selected two criteria: they’re great animators, and they all knew how to play basketball, because he didn’t want anyone who didn’t know how to play basketball animating our footage, since it had to look good.
DEADLINE: What would you like audiences to take away from this short?
KAINO: One thing we’ve been saying is that I think people have said that the film brings our leaders and our cultural heroes down to our level, and we like to say it also paints a path for us to aspire to be at their level. I think this is a story about connectivity, camaraderie, and team building from end to end, and I think this country could use a healthy dose of team building.
FEASTER: In addition to team building, one of the themes that keeps coming up as we share the film and get reactions is that we are also in a time when we need hope. When you look at MLK, President Obama, and the subjects they addressed, part of what they did, in addition to building teamwork, is that there’s such a hopefulness about them. And I think even how we’re portraying them in the film, it gets people excited, right? We can each do our part. So, to Glenn’s point, there’s the team aspect, and there’s also a mirror aspect. I hope this puts up a mirror for people and allows us to look and say, “What can we do differently [to build community]?” Sports are such a huge part of our culture here in the States. And just in general, there’s AAU teams, and there’s college and there’s high school, and there’s Little League. There are so many different moments for you to meet your neighbor or your community members.
[This interview has been edited for length and clarity]