LeBron James’ company to host film festival in L.A. focused on empowering athletes
LeBron James’ SpringHill Co. is co-hosting a one-day film festival focused on empowering athletes and their storytelling at NeueHouse Hollywood on July 13.
The Uninterrupted Film Festival, a collaboration of SpringHill’s digital platform Uninterrupted and Tribeca Enterprises, will bring together high-profile athletes, filmmakers and content creators for documentary premieres, post-screening panels and state-of-the-game conversations.
The event aims to spotlight how the recent player empowerment movement has led many athletes to tell their own stories, and to create companies looking to tell others’ as well.
When debating the greatest players in Lakers history, LeBron James is likely the most talented of them all, but only tied for seventh in an L.A. Times poll.
“It’s about time that we’re able to celebrate and do this,” Uninterrupted general manager Jimmy Spencer told The Los Angeles Times on Sunday. “I’m shocked that no one has done this before.”
The festival will showcase two new films featuring Black athletes and their experiences.
One is “Goliath,” a new Showtime docuseries about Wilt Chamberlain, the trailblazing Lakers champion and basketball Hall of Famer. Content Cartel, the L.A.-based company owned by Kevin Garnett, another NBA Hall of Famer, is among the film studios that produced the series.
The other film is “Black Ice,” a documentary exploring the history of racism in hockey through the stories of Black players, both past and present, in the predominately white sport. It’s set to open in theaters nationwide on July 14, and James and Maverick Carter, SpringHill’s chief executive, are among its executive producers.
The panel conversations will feature a range of high-profile and up-and-coming athletes.
The little, and big, moments that led to LeBron James becoming the NBA’s all-time leading scorer as he surpassed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on Tuesday night.
Joel Embiid, the reigning NBA MVP, will join Carter during one of them to not only introduce Miniature Géant, the production firm Embiid created with help from SpringHill — but also to discuss what it means to have athletes creating content from start to finish in Hollywood.
“The whole goal is just to try to tell people stories, and use my platform to inspire the next generation,” Embiid told Variety recently.
Kayvon Thibodeaux, the former South Los Angeles prep school star and current New York Giants linebacker, will moderate a panel of next-generation athletes talking about how the world of name, image and likeness revenue is empowering them — and their vision for storytelling in the future.
The third conversation will have as-yet-named pro athletes unpacking how far they may start going with access and raw conversations when they are driving the projects themselves.
“I think we want to showcase the making of these things,” Spencer said. “What does it mean to be so vulnerable and to provide this access? What does that feel like?”
The festival will end with an hourlong live taping of “The Draymond Green Show,” the popular podcast series hosted by the four-time NBA champion power forward.
Tribeca co-founder and Chief Executive Jane Rosenthal said in a statement that the company featured more than a dozen sports films and TV shows at its own festival held this month in New York.
“We’re thrilled to partner with Uninterrupted and expand our celebration of sport through art,” Rosenthal said.
It’s still to be determined whether James himself will participate in the festival, Spencer said.
With seating limited to about 1,000 at a time, each ticket bought will allow its holder access to one of the two screenings and the associated panel, as well as one of the three state-of-the-game conversations, organizers said. The podcast taping will require a separate ticket. General admission tickets will cost $40 each, with those for students going for $25 apiece.
Herbert Lowe is a Times visiting academic fellow and senior lecturer at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications.
All things Lakers, all the time.
Get all the Lakers news you need in Dan Woike's weekly newsletter.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
