Synopsis

Like many young men in the Dominican Republic, Miguel “Sugar” Santos dreams of becoming a baseball star in the United States. Yet, unlike most of the others Sugar has a real shot at making it, thanks to his devastating curveball. Soon he is spotted by a scout and whisked away to Kansas City to a Minor League team. So begins Sugar’s journey towards his dream of building a new home for his family—and buying a Cadillac for himself. In Kansas, Sugar faces the challenges of a new culture, including the language barrier, casual racism and the ways of American women. When he is injured and his closest friend departs the team, Sugar begins to examine the world around him and his place in it. Pressure mounts when a new pitcher arrives. As his dream slowly crumbles, Sugar decides to start a new chapter in his odyssey and follow another, no less elusive, kind of dream.

Details

(114mins) | United States of America

Language:

Spanish and English, with English subtitles

Production

Directors:

Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck

Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck are a writer-director team, graduates of the Columbia University Tisch School of the Arts. Before getting into feature films they made a few short documentaries, and an award-winning short narrative film, Gowanus, Brooklyn (2004). In 2006 their first feature-length film, the Academy Award-nominated drama Half Nelson, was released to critical acclaim. Their latest film is a comedy, It's Kind of a Funny Story (2010).