Sports
"Chains," the Disc Golf Movie, Premieres Tonight in Santa Cruz
Tonight's showing will be only chance to see the director's cut.
When Derrick Hastings returned to New York to continue filming NFL games for ESPN in 2007 he felt a debt to Santa Cruz and the Disc Golf community. All of that will likely be paid back at the world premiere of Chains: The Movie at the Rio Theatre tonight.
The film was originally meant to chronicle Nate Doss's journey to capture the World Championships in 2006, but has evolved to show the growth of the sport which in many ways parallels the growth of director Derrick Hastings.
A sport that was relatively unknown in 2007, when he left for New York and resumed filming the NFL at ESPN he wasn't sure if the film would ever get finished. But three and a half years ago he found himself back in Santa Cruz, living in a trailer, with no food, no money, and a foggy memory of the story he had set out to convey.
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"My parents are artists, and my dad always taught me to take risks," said Hastings. "I just got tired of dealing with rich athletes."
Instead he came back to record the growth of a sport which producer Vince Sanchez says will please disc golfers while also showing outsiders why players tour the country bumming rides sleeping on couches and selling their merchandise to feed themselves.
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"We are making this movie to show people who have never played, why their friends are crazy, playing all the time," said Sanchez. See a video interview to the right of this story.
He compares the stage of the sport to the way baseball was before sales exploded in the 70's and 80's, with players working day jobs on the off season to support themselves in a game that pays the bills for very few.
With 432 players representing 14 nations in town for the biggest World Championship tournament in the game's history, they have the best possible audience to get feedback on the extended "director's cut" of the film.
They will cut the film down over several showings through the year, and hope to show it at festivals and find distributors in the future to push the film and game closer to the mainstream. DirecTV will be broadcasting the tournament from the course at Pinto Lake in Watsonville all week.
Hastings hopes his colleagues at ESPN will see the passion players feel for the game, and push hard to get the game on television where he is sure it will take flight.
