Sydney Freeland to direct ‘Rez Ball’ for Netflix; says “I am beyond excited"

Sydney Freeland, one of the popular American tv writer-director, was recently finalised to direct the upcoming American native basketball movie, Rez Ball for Netflix. According to the reports by Variety, the director spoke about how excited she was to be working with Netflix and also opened up about the plot of the movie. 

Sydney Freeland on working with Netflix

As Sydney Freeland was signed to direct the upcoming Netflix coming-of-age drama movie, Rez Ball, she stated, “I am beyond excited to be working with Netflix, Wise Entertainment and The SpringHill Company to bring this story to life. Basketball on the Rez is like high school football in West Texas. It has a fanatical following that few sports can rival.” She also added, “I’m also excited to be working with Sterlin Harjo on this. He has brought so much insight, humor, and heart to this story.”

As Rez Ball will depict the raw world of reservation basketball, Freeland further added, “This is a story that’s commonplace on Indian reservations all over the US, but most people aren’t even aware it exists. What we want to do is bring people into our world, to tell a story about the people and places we know, and what better way to do that than through a sports movie? We want to tell a story that is authentic to the place and people, told from the inside out. We are so excited with the team we’ve assembled and can’t wait to bring this to the screen.”

The movie will be produced by Maurício and Katie Mota’s Wise Entertainment and LeBron James and Maverick Carter’s The SpringHill Company, along with Spencer Beighley and Jamal Henderson of The SpringHill Company serving as executive producers. Expressing the delight of being a part of such a project,  Maurício Mota stated, “We could not be more excited to bring this beautiful, powerful story to life with this amazing team.”

“It was through this community that we were connected with the extraordinary multi-hyphenates Sydney Freeland and Sterlin Harjo whom we spent the last several years developing the script. We are so honoured to be working with them and the brilliant team at The SpringHill Company. ‘Rez Ball’ aims to be a love letter to the contributions Native Americans have made to basketball and also a launchpad for Native talent both in front of and behind the camera, ready to make their mark in the industry. We want this to be a blueprint for how to balance excellent storytelling with impact and pipeline development,” Mota concluded. 

IMAGE: AP