Streetplay.com Home Contact us
Big Blue – The NYC Handball Documentary
The GamesNewsPhotosStoriesDiscussionYouth ProgramsLinksThe Streetplay Store

2001 Handball Media Coverage
• Big Blue Documentary
• Nike - Plays of Summer
• Handball Cards Debut

New Coverage - On the Web
• www.bigbluehandball.com
• Village Voice article
• One-Wall Center Headlines

Streetplay's Handball Coverage

• Handball home
• Schedule
• Links
• Photos
• Video and film Video!



Rookie and Power's match at the 2000 King of the Courts is captured in the documentary
Click for bigger picture
photo by Aaron Olivo
Rookie and Power's match at the 2000 King of the Courts is one of the many great action events captured in the documentary.



Filmmaker Justin Sullivan spent last summer capturing all the major One-Wall events
Click for bigger picture
Filmmaker Justin Sullivan spent last summer capturing all the major One-Wall events


Big Blue Handball Documentary

One year after he first began shooting footage for a handball documentary, independent filmmaker Justin Sullivan is drawing much needed publicity to this often unrecognized street sport.

Spurred on by a rough cut of "Big Blue - The NYC Handball Documentary," the Village Voice published an extended feature "Up Against the Wall" on big blue handball, a game that they deemed the city's most popular recreation sport. This article will likely be followed by more handball publicity as Sullivan awaits word from several area film festivals with whom his documentary is in consideration. Meanwhile, Sullivan has gone online with www.bigbluehandball.com, a website offering background on the game accompanied by photos and video feeds from the documentary.

Sullivan, a 26-year-old Williamsburg resident and handball player himself, was a reporter with The New Haven Register when he quit last year to work full time on the documentary. He said "I knew that the only way to show people what handball was all about was through a video, and instead of waiting for someone else to do the documentary, I decided to do it myself."

Over the course of last summer, Justin, his brother Paul and friend Bryan Christian went to every major handball tournament, shooting dozens of games and interviewing an assortment of top players and fans. By seasons' end, the three had accumulated an impressive 84 hours of digital video footage, a collection of reckless dives, wild victory celebrations and candid talk from the players that has since been turned into the one-hour documentary.

Featuring Rookie, Power, Pee Wee, Joe Durso, Humberto Baez, Buddy Gantt, Angel Marquez and others, "Big Blue" attempts to document not only the most exciting games from the summer of 2000, but also handball as the grassroots, non-commercial sport that it is. "There is something so pure about this sport," Sullivan is quoted in the Voice feature. "But somehow, as often as it is played here, it never really gets the kind of attention it deserves."

Hopefully, with the completion and screening of "Big Blue." New York's most popular street sport will finally get the recognition it's due.


Streetplay.com Home | What's New | Sitemap | About Us | Contact us
The Games | News | Photos | Stories | Youth Programs | Discussion | Links | Streetplay Store