EXCLUSIVE: Ryan Sidhoo’s documentary The Track has lined up its next two festival appearances – and they’re major.
The film, about aspiring Bosnian Olympic lugers who train on a track in Sarajevo damaged during the war in the former Yugoslavia, will screen at the San Francisco International Film Festival on Wednesday, April 23.
“Sarajevo’s luge track, built for the 1984 Winter Games, is now a bullet-holed, graffitied tourist attraction,” Bedatri Choudhury writes in the SFFILM program. “But where outsiders see war-scarred history, luge coach Senad Omanović and his team see possibilities for a brighter future.”
After San Francisco, the film zips to Hot Docs in Toronto, where it is set to screen on Sunday, April 27 and Wednesday, April 30.
“For young Olympic hopefuls Hamza, Zlatan and Mirza, however, the track is more than a relic—it’s their training ground,” Hot Docs’ Aisha Jamal writes. “Despite chronic government underfunding for the sport, the boys are buoyed by the steadfast guidance of their seasoned Olympic coach Senad Omanović, and they dedicate years to refining their technique and turns on the decaying track, which stands as a powerful visual reminder of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s ongoing post-war political struggles.”
We have your first look at the documentary in the clip below. It’s the debut feature for Vancouver-based Sidhoo, whose previous credits include directing the 2018 docuseries True North – Inside the Rise of Toronto Basketball.
“Having The Track at both of these festivals is really special for different reasons,” the filmmaker tells Deadline. “SFFILM supported us at a critical moment with their 2023 Documentary Film Fund, so it feels like a celebration to screen with them. As a Canadian filmmaker, it’s a bit of a homecoming to have our Canadian premiere at Hot Docs—but what I’m most excited about is that Mirza will be there. The Bosnian community in Toronto is strong, and people have already started reaching out offering him a place to stay or to take him out to dinner—that’s been really heartwarming to see.”
The Track held its world premiere in late February at True/False in Columbia, MO. At a Q&A there, Sidhoo told audiences the documentary project came about organically. “I started traveling in the region and just the warmth of the people, the acceptance, I kind of felt like it was a second home,” he said. “I was like, wow, I like this place. So, I just kept going back.”
On one visit, he like many other visitors and locals, took a stroll along the luge track, which has become a popular attraction similar in a sense to Manhattan’s High Line. But then he was warned that on that particular day that walking on the track presented imminent peril.
“I was confused over why people are telling me to get off. And then they explained to me they were using it, they were training on it,” he recalled, “and then immediately the light went on in my head and the story just kind stuck with me. [I] just kind of nurtured the relationship with the coach [Senad]. And eight years later, we’re here.”
Mirza Nikolajev, one of the young lugers profiled in the documentary, joined the director and filmmaking team at True/False. Sidhoo tells us Nikolajev’s travel visa just came through allowing him to attend Hot Docs.
Nikolajev participated in the 2022 Winter Olympics Games in Beijing, where he became a bit of a sensation – not for his exploits on the luge track per se, but for his appearance at the Opening Ceremony, where he was a flag bearer for Bosnia-Herzegovina. The cameras happened to fix on him at one point and he winked, which instantly endeared him to millions of Chinese TV viewers.
“With this charming wink, BiH Olympic athlete Mirza Nikolajev drew the attention of millions of Chinese people,” China’s Embassy in Bosnia-Herzegovina noted at the time, “and [he] climbed up the list of hot topics on the popular [social] network Weibo.”
Mirza and his fellow young lugers are featured in the clip below, along with their coach, Senad, who donates his time to the athletes and to keeping the track in adequate condition for training. Not an easy task on a concrete monolith that became a bulwark for Sarajevo’s defenders more than 30 years ago.
Watch the clip here:
The post Sarajevo Luger Documentary ‘The Track’ Barrels From Bosnia To San Francisco Film Festival And Toronto’s Hot Docs appeared first on Deadline.
