Film
Home Court (film)
Home Court is a 2024 coming-of-age documentary by Erica Tanamachi about Ashley Chea, a Cambodian American basketball player, and her family.[1] It was filmed over three years.[1]
Synopsis
The film begins in Ashley's sophomore year of high school. She moves between her home in a lower-income Los Angeles neighborhood, Flintridge Prep, youth basketball tournaments and colleges across the country.[1] Her parents work long hours at the family's donut shop, and her coach, Jayme Kiyomura Chan, helps look after her, from doctor visits to getting her driver's permit.[1][2] Basketball offers Ashley the chance to become the first in her family to go to college.[1]
The story follows the highs and lows of her Cambodian immigrant family in the United States, including cultural adaptation, changing gender roles, and differences of race and class.[2][1] Ashley's father, Baov Chea, came to the United States as a refugee in 1994, at age 12, with his mother, brother and sister. Ashley's mother, Lida Chea, arrived about five years later. Both of their families were devastated by the Khmer Rouge regime of 1975 to 1979.[3] Her father's love of basketball began with NBA games in the mid-1990s, and he passed it on to her.[4] The film also shows tension between Ashley and her mother.[5]
Ashley, a point guard, suffers a serious knee injury.[1] She plays at the McDonald's All-American Camp.[4] The film's website says she was the youngest player ever recruited to Nike Team Taurasi.[3] As recruiting pressure grows, she must choose among college offers. She chooses Princeton University, where she feels most at home with the coaches and players.[1] In her senior year she leads her team to an upset win over its rivals, and the film ends as she leaves for college with her family.[1] The film includes images of war and incarceration camps and the sound of gunshots.[6]
Background
The film draws on the history of Asian Americans in sports. Asian American leagues formed in the late 1800s and early 1900s in response to anti-Asian racism, and Asian American women began playing on co-ed teams in the 1930s and 1940s.[3] Japanese American basketball teams were also formed in the incarceration camps of World War II.[5] Coach Kiyomura Chan grew up playing in Asian American leagues. Her father founded Yonsei Basketball, a Japanese American league that offers Japanese cultural exchange through basketball for AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islander) youth.[3]
Production and credits
Home Court is Tanamachi's first feature film.[3] Her earlier documentary Winn premiered at the Atlanta Film Festival, won several awards and was picked up by PBS.[1] The project began after the filmmaker Jenn Lee Smith introduced Tanamachi to Asian American basketball leagues, where they met Kiyomura Chan and Ashley Chea.[1][3] Tanamachi linked the film to the history of those leagues, which Japanese Americans formed in response to discrimination.[1]
Jean Kawahara and Tanamachi wrote the film, and Kawahara edited it. Brian Hsu Inocencio was director of photography.[6] Jenn Lee Smith, Brandon Soun and Tanamachi produced it, and Diane Quon, Lisa Ling, Carrie Lozano and Lois Vossen were executive producers.[6] Gene Back composed the score, with music also by Ruby Ibarra, and Pascal Garneau designed the sound.[6] Asian Ballers produced the film, and the Center for Asian American Media helped fund it.[7][2] The film is in English and Khmer with subtitles.[6]
Release and reception
The film had its world premiere at the 2024 VC Film Fest, with a screening at the Aratani Theatre of the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center on May 5.[6] Its Bay Area premiere came at CAAMFest at the Great Star Theater on May 12, 2024.[2] The Asian American International Film Festival gave it its East Coast premiere at Regal Union Square in New York City on August 3, 2024.[8]
Home Court opened the 2024 Cambodia Town Film Festival in Long Beach, California, screening on September 14, 2024, at 11 a.m. at the Art Theatre Long Beach.[1] The 2024 San Diego Asian Film Festival showed it in its Asian American Panorama program.[4] From March 25, 2025, it was scheduled for theaters, festivals, special screenings and PBS stations.[5]
The film won the Jury Award for Documentary Feature at the 2024 Austin Asian American Film Festival. The jury called it entertaining and uplifting and noted its treatment of war, displacement, gender roles, cultural change and young Asian American women in sport.[7][4]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 Cambodia Town Film Festival, CTFF 2024 Official selection: Home court (archived)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 CAAMFest 2024, Home Court
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Home Court, About
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 San Diego Asian Film Festival 2024, Home Court
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Stage and Cinema, Film Review: Home Court (March 22, 2025)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 2024 VC Film Fest, HOME COURT
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Home Court, official film site
- ↑ Asian American International Film Festival, HOME COURT