Countries

Sport, place and production context

Sporting stories are never entirely placeless. Clubs, schools, cities, national competitions and production traditions affect what can be shown and what an audience is expected to recognize. The country pages offer another route through the same films, allowing differences in setting and cultural context to become more visible.

At present the strongest groups are the United States and the United Kingdom. They include everything from basketball and baseball to football, running and boxing. The country link is not meant to reduce a film to nationality; it gives one more way to understand the institutions, landscapes and sporting cultures surrounding the story.