Champions: a lesson in humanity

Cinema, beyond giving us a good time, can become a powerful weapon, capable of creating powerful messages, to denounce, criticize and, ultimately, vindicate. The thinker Marshall McLuhan stated: “the medium is the message”; and in this sense, cinema is a great medium. Champions (Javier Fesser, 2018) has become the big winner of the last Goya gala.

With a happy and innocent tone, Champions send a clear and forceful message, It aims to make visible some people who are frequently excluded from society. Three Goya Awards under his belt accompany his box office success: best original song, best film and best new actor for Jesús Vidal.

It is not easy to make a film that sheds some light on intellectual disabilities without falling into melodrama or excessive sweetness, and although Champions He is tremendously optimistic, embraces differences with a smile, from respect and inclusion.

Bet on the worth of these people who, day after day, fight for their integration into an increasingly competitive and demanding society.

Aside from its positive message, the film also leaves room for criticism, which goes beyond the obvious. In a totally dehumanized world, what we need are smiles and a good dose of humanity.

Champions, an awareness campaign

Marco Montes is the second coach of a basketball team, he is used to high-voltage competitiveness. His personal life is not at its best and, professionally, he begins to falter. Montes loses his job and, after a series of altercations resulting from driving under the influence of alcohol, he finds himself between a rock and a hard place.

He must choose between spending a period in prison or coaching a basketball team made up of people with intellectual disabilities.. Obviously, the choice, albeit reluctantly, is clear. We soon meet the members of the “Los Amigos” team and the situation, for Marco, becomes desperate.

Sensitization occurs progressively, Marco learns a little more about the personal situation of each of the players. They all fight, day by day, like any of us. Getting a job is something that we have completely normalized, we take it for granted although, each time, it is more complicated for everyone. However, the situation worsens significantly when we talk about people with disabilities.

The film shows, in turn, a certain denunciation. There are countless things that we take for granted, they are normal and we no longer question them. But reality is different for each of the individuals who make up a society. Not even Marco himself could perform as a basketball player, since he does not have an essential characteristic for this sport: being tall.

Likewise, Champions shows us the darkest side of some companies that take advantage of subsidies to hire people with disabilitiesundervaluing them, despising them and giving them different and derogatory treatment.

Furthermore, it takes the opportunity to remind us that our actions can add enormous value to the lives of others. Marco drives under the influence of alcohol and this is a fact that, in addition to claiming countless lives, can cause other types of irreversible damage.

As we have anticipated, a film of this type can fall into clichés, sadness and sentimentality. Champions It does not completely escape the clichés, but it avoids the melodrama, bringing us closer to a much more human vision.

Humor and sport as links

Sport should be about enjoyment, improvement and effort. Unfortunately, in some cases, this vision is very far from reality.. And I’m not just talking about elite sports, but about our daily lives. How much news about sports fights do we hear? How many children’s competitions are marred by unhealthy competitiveness? I’m not trying to disqualify the entire sport, or say that we shouldn’t give our best. Competitiveness yes, but in the right measure.

It seems that we have lost respect, that in the fight to be the best, we don’t mind stepping on anyone. And this is something that, as children, we did not know, but we have learned over time.

Children, like the protagonists of the film, practice sports to have fun. Of course, we all want to win, we all want our efforts to be recognized, but that does not mean we should crush our rival or cry in the face of defeat.

Sport should function as a connecting link, capable of eliminating barriers and borders. A tool that allows us to enjoy, socialize and, why not, also improve ourselves.

We have to go out to win, yes, like in all the battles we face daily; but winning is not synonymous with destroying the opponent. That lesson is not going to be taught by Marco, that lesson is going to be learned from people who still retain their innocence, purity and who are capable of embracing their opponent whether they win or lose.

Humor, in turn, works perfectly in Champions. The comic note occurs in different situations, but at no point does mockery appear. All the characters are capable of making us laugh, but not at them, but with them. Therein lies the difference.

Champions, lessons for everyone

You learn from everything and everyone. But the message of Champions It is not limited only to its plot and its entity as a cinematographic product, but goes much further.. On the one hand, the actors that make up the basketball team are people with no experience in acting – except for Jesús Vidal – who also have some type of disability.

Visibility comes from within, giving them the opportunity to star in a film in which they have more than proven to adapt perfectly to their characters and demands. With enthusiasm and work, they have given us interpretations that transcend any social mold.. We do not see that label that in many cases they carry, but rather we enjoy the film and its characters.

Inclusion is reflected in the film, but also behind the cameras. Fesser relied on people with intellectual disabilities to work on other sections that do not appear on screen. Likewise, they had the support of different organizations and it has been a strong push for them. By raising awareness and protesting, great things can be achieved.

The Goyas soaked up that energy and joy that it gives us Championsbut, above all, they shone with the spectacular speech of Jesús Vidal. A speech of thanks in which he gave voice to all of his colleagues and to all the people who, like him, have a disability. Vidal suffers from a 90% visual disability, but this has not been an impediment for him to obtain a degree in Hispanic Philology, pursue a master’s degree in Journalism and, of course, demonstrate his acting skills.

Without a doubt, it was a speech that we should all hear, that brought smiles and tears of emotion in an environment that, sometimes, as in sport, is dirty by superficiality and excessive competitiveness. As Vidal points out: “inclusion, visibility and diversity”, a great lesson and three very necessary words.

Capturing all that innocence and naturalness, Champions manages to convey a completely humanizing message. Awareness can occur in different ways, whether through politics or the media. In this case, cinema proposes us to change our perspective, our way of seeing these people who, unfortunately, continue to be excluded and silenced.

Reality itself inspired the film; Thanks to a news item in the newspaper, the idea arose. Now, Champions, although it is not the first film in history to address issues of inclusion, it has opened or made the path wider; It’s fun and a breath of fresh air.

Life lessons and much-needed visibility because We, like Marco, also have a lot to learn.

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