Within the Grasp’ at Sundance

Names: Sue Chook and Jay Ellis

Sundance challenge: “Sue Bird: In the Clutch,” a documentary marking Chook’s depart nearest 21 years within the WNBA, they all spent with the Seattle Typhoon. 

Chook and Ellis met in 2020, because the WNBA had simply gotten out of the COVID-19 bubble and the Typhoon had gained the championship. 

Ryan Ruocco, the announcer for the WNBA who serves as a manufacturer at the movie, is each a excellent pal of Chook’s and of Ellis’ generating spouse, Aaron Bergman. 

“Aaron and I were just having this conversation about Sue and it just came up like, ‘oh, I wonder if she’s going to do a doc?’” Ellis says. “We assumed she was getting close to the end of her career and was going to make a decision. We didn’t know when, obviously, so we sent Ryan out to do some recon to find out what she was thinking, and he was like, ‘she’s open to talking about it.’”

They create a sound, together with how they sought after girls to be at the vanguard of the crew running at the challenge, and in the end Chook stated “yes,” nearest some deliberation.

“You have to wrap your head around the idea of people being around you and following you and you’re miked, so they’re catching everything, even the things you say under your breath. But it wasn’t that difficult,” Chook says. “It really wasn’t.” 

They began taking pictures in 2021, as Chook used to be doing a exercise in Scarsdale, N.Y., along with her fiancé, Megan Rapinoe, in the course of COVID-19 precautions, with Rapinoe enjoying protection for her.

“I was lucky that there was this guy who had a basketball court, a swimming pool indoors, all the things you would need to train for the WNBA season,” Chook says. “And so that’s when we first started [shooting].”

“We actually used all of that as materials to go out to town to sell it,” Ellis says.

The documentary tracks Chook’s entire occupation, from her upbringing on Lengthy Island to her week at UConn to her many Olympic wins. But the item she’s maximum glad the movie captures is her dating with the fan bottom in Seattle, the place she spent her entire WNBA occupation.

“Playing in the same place for 20 years, my relationship with the fans is something that’s near and dear to me,” she says. “And I know for them to be able to share in my final year was special. And just that interaction, that relationship, the way that’s captured, is amazing.”