[Editor's Note: For more coverage of GIFF, check out Joe Bardi's cover story on GIFF and expanded Q&A with festival President Chad Moore Mitch Perry's story on festival entry Full Signal, and more reviews of some of the films playing the festival.]
I'm not a fighter, so the idea that high-school kids can benefit from punching each other in the head is alien to me. Watching director Nico Sabenorio's excellent Bout That Bout, I realized that an after-school fight club is really no different that football practice when it's properly managed — and maybe even a bit safer. The film follows three kids from Seffner, each with his own brand of family hardship and limited options for the future, as they organize a fight and prepare for battle. Though Seffner is only a few miles outside of downtown Tampa, the locations shown in the film might as well be on another planet. Bout That Bout provides a powerful window into the lives of those struggling to survive modern poverty, but what makes the film special is that you can see these people rising above their situation right before your eyes. And hey, if someone has to get their ass kicked in the process, who am I to judge?
Bout That Bout is screening Sat. March 20 at 9:30 p.m. at the Muvico Centro Ybor, as part of a double feature with Peter Guzzo's similarly MMA-themed Caged Dreams.
Check out a video preview after the break …
This article appears in Mar 17-23, 2010.