The Hamptons Doc Fest announced that "Citizen Ashe" was the audience award winner of its 2021 film festival, held from Dec. 3 to 10. It was also the recipient of the festival's Human Rights Award.
Rex Miller and Sam Pollard, who directed the film, used an impressive archive devoted to Arthur Ashe's tennis career. It consisted of 47 boxes of Ashe's papers and 33 micro cassettes. They used the material to construct a 94-minute documentary devoted to his life. Mr. Miller was a professional tennis player himself, which he said inspired him to make the film.
Ashe's groundbreaking career included the first African-American wins of the men's singles titles at Wimbledon, the U.S. Open, and the Australian Open. He was also the first Black man to be inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1985.
In addition to opening doors within the tennis community, Ashe worked for civil rights causes in America and South Africa. After contracting H.I.V. through a blood transfusion, he also became an AIDS activist in the late 1980s.
The Human Rights award was given over Zoom during the festival. Jacqui Lofaro, the festival's director, noted of the film, "It presented a multi-faceted view of one of the world's great tennis stars. The documentary allowed us to experience Arthur Ashe's quiet humanitarian and civil rights work, including interacting with Nelson Mandela."
The directors participated in an interview at the end of the festival's screening over Zoom with Nancy Buirski, the founder and director of the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival and a director of several films involving African-American subjects.
The documentary opened in early December in New York City and is also streaming on multiple platforms. CNN will air it next year before the U.S. Open tennis tournament.
