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In Football We Trust, 87 minutes, dvd, color, 2015. Directed by Tony Vainuku and Erika Cohn; produced by Erika Cohn, Geralyn Dreyfous, Mark Lipson, and Gavin Dougan. Distributed by ifwt Productions, llc; Idle Wild Films Inc; and the Independent Television Service, in association with Pacific Islanders in Communications.
In Football We Trust is a documentary feature film that follows the lives of four Tongan student athletes: Harvey Langi from Bingham High School, Fihi Kaufusi from Highland High School, and brothers Leva and Vita Bloomfield from Hunter High School. Directed by first-time documentary filmmakers Tony Vainuku and Erika Cohn, In Football We Trust was an official selection in the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and is set against the backdrop of the class, race, and religious context of Salt Lake City, Utah, the epicenter of both the "Polynesian Pipeline to the nfl [the National Football League]" and also Polynesian immigration to the United States of America via the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The film leads with the stunning statistic that while Tongans and Samoans in the United States number only 240,000, they are twenty-eight times more likely than any other ethnic group to play in the nfl .
]With snappy editing and smooth transitions by editors Ericka Concha, William Haugse (Oscar-nominated editor of Hoop Dreams [1996]), and Ken Schneider, the film rolls like the swells of the ocean itself. The first swell introduces the young men in situ: in high school bleachers hanging out, in classrooms practicing the Maori haka, on the field at Friday night football games. We are immediately entranced as the film introduces us to major influences in their lives: coaches, teammates, parents, siblings, friends, and girlfriends. The film begins to weave in clips with professional Polynesian athletes, who, like "ancestors," illuminate the journey for these "nfl hopefuls" and provide a chorus-like commentary on family pressures, cultural background, and the odds of making it. These professional athletes include Vai Sikahema (the first Tongan to play in the nfl), Haloti Ngata and Star Lotulelei (both also from Utah), and Troy Polamalu. Their cautionary voices balance the optimism and high expectations of these young athletes while confirming that...