THE FILM IN DETAILS

I met Drew Cunningham in 2010 when he was 12 years old. He was a young kid who played video games and power wheelchair soccer. I was a graduate student at Syracuse University figuring out filmmaking. What started as an assignment became a life-long friendship. Drew forever transformed my life. 

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Over the years, we became close friends. We went to see the Yankees and drove for hours to power soccer tournaments where he introduced me to the community. I watched Drew’s meteoric rise in power soccer from an unknown to the youngest athlete to join the national team. I witnessed as the sport opened up the world to him, shaping his character, and giving him a platform to mentor young disabled athletes.

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As I came into filmmaking, Drew came into power soccer. His ambition shaped both of our careers. This film is crafted in his image: full of laughter, moxie, and tenacity. It is an homage to a long friendship and a tribute to the impact he had on my life and the lives of all those who loved him. 

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– Andrew Hida, Director

At its core, POWER is an observational documentary defined by closeness and intimacy. The narrative is driven by hand-held cinéma vérité that reveals the multi-dimensionality of our characters on and off the court. 

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The visual language is naturalistic in style, minimal in influence, and present tense. Our approach was simple: work in small teams (oftentimes a single operator) and never allow production to interfere with the storytelling. We chose to film all hand-held for its immersive quality placing the viewer in the moment, experiencing the story as it unfolds. At any given moment, we had 5-10 athletes and coaches mic’d to capture organic conversations. The result is a presence in the filmmaking that is aural, visceral, raw, honest, and engaging. It’s hard to look away. 

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We spent countless hours embedded with the team, developing deep relationships with the participants. This trust empowered the participants to be confident, authentic, and willingly vulnerable. They offered us unparalleled access to film the mundane and personal moments, and all the normally unseen “closed-door sports moments.”

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The film succeeds in creating two distinct, yet overlapping worlds where the visibility of a character’s disability ebbs and flows throughout the narrative. While an athlete’s disability may become more apparent in the privacy of their home, their disability completely disappears in the movement of sport. The viewer at times completely forgets they are watching a disability story, and become wholly invested in the athletes’ success.