This
is not the Utah we know from coming to Park City for Sundance, Slamdance or
maybe skiing. This is Salt Lake City, home to the nation’s largest Polynesian
immigrant community. Yes, many of them are Mormon, why do you ask? Their faith is with the Latter Day Saints, but
their hopes and passion are in football all the way. Tony Vainuku (the first
Tongan filmmaker accepted at Sundance) & Erika Cohn follow four top high
school seniors throughout In Football We
Trust (trailer
here),
which screens during the 2015 Los Angeles Film Festival.
According
to Trust, Polynesian prospects are
twenty-eight times more likely to make the NFL than any other demographic
group. The film also acknowledges the same is not true for Ivy League medical
and law schools. This is a problem, but Vainuku & Cohn will primarily focus
on other issues, like religion and crime. The former is clearly a positive
force for the families profiled in the film, often credited for providing
direct assistance, as well as a social network and structure. The latter is never
a good thing, but the intrusion of gang violence could well jeopardize at least
one player’s future.
For
obvious reasons, the filmmakers spend a great deal of time with the brothers
Bloomfeld, Leva and Vita, whose reformed father was one of the founders of the
Baby Regulators, a notorious Polynesian street gang. Their father might be out
of the life, but the life will still come looking for at least one of the
brothers.
In
intriguing ways, Trust confirms some
of our possible preconceptions, while contradicting others. All four POV
players seem to be reasonable well accepted in high school (they are jocks
after all) and at one least has a popular apparently Anglo girlfriend. It also
seems like the Mormon mission call can be a rather handy escape hatch during
challenging times.
Unfortunately,
through Fihi Kaufusi’s experiences, Trust
also raises timely issues of football safety. Kaufusi actually played on
both sides of the ball, which is a practice many would have assumed went the
way of leather helmets. He will suffer an injury that the team doctor “under-diagnoses,”
so you can probably guess what happens next.
