WEEK IN WOMEN: Sydney Freeland’s REZ BALL looks to score on Netflix – Brandy McDonnell reports

Navaho filmmaker Sydney Freeland’s Native American basketball drama Rez Ball is tipping off Sept. 27 on Netflix.

Rez Ball is a sports drama that follows the Chuska Warriors, a Native American high school basketball team from Chuska, New Mexico, that must band together after losing their star player if they want to keep their quest for a state championship alive. It’s an all-American underdog story about Navajo kids and coaches told from an all-American perspective that has too often been overlooked.

Freeland (TV’s Rutherford Falls, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds) co-wrote the script with Oklahoma filmmaker Sterlin Harjo (Reservation Dogs), who is Seminole and Muscogee.

Before she split directing duties on Echo with fellow Indigenous director Catriona McKenzie, who is Gunaikurnai, Freeland directed two Season 1 episodes of FX on Hulu’s acclaimed Native American coming-of-age comedy series Reservation Dogs, which Harjo (Barking Water, Four Sheets to the Wind) created with Oscar-winning New Zealand filmmaker Taika Waititi (What We Do in the Shadows, Jojo Rabbit), who is of Maori ancestry. Continue reading on THE WEEK IN WOMEN