The Basketball Game

Healing wounds and changing worldviews, all though a simple game of basketball.

Nine-year-old Hart is attending Jewish summer camp for the first time.

As if that isn’t awkward enough, this summer the camp is going to play host to some very particular visitors, though the kids at camp don’t know that yet.

What everyone else knows is that in a nearby small town, a teacher by the name of Jim Keegstra was criminally charged with hate crimes for spreading anti-Semitic views in his classroom, where he told his students that the holocaust was a hoax.

To make matters worse, he’s also the nearby town’s mayor.

To help combat the growing sense of dread in the Jewish community, the parents, elders and camp director decide that the best path forward is to invite the students taught by Keegstra to the summer camp for a day of fun and fellowship.

What transpires in this comic-memoir by filmmaker Hart Snider is a basketball game for all-time.

Adapted from the NFB’s short animation of the same name, The Basketball Game is a poignant tale of the power of communion and community as a means to rise above hatred and bigotry.

In the end, as is recognized by the kids playing the basketball game, we’re all in this together.