There is a new film, a documentary by Douglas Robbins, about college debate. The film is titled Debate Team and it was shown at the San Francisco International Documentary Film Festival earlier this week and will be shown one more time on Sunday, November 2 at 9:30pm at the Stattuck Cinema in Berkeley, CA. You can buy tickets online. The director and producer will be there to talk about the documentary after the show and will sell signed copies of the DVD!
What is the film about? The Debate Team Documentary website has this summary:
Debate Team is a documentary exploring the weird subculture of competitive college debate. Competitors battle at 360 words per minute, hauling around mountains of evidence called “cards” and nearly every debate ends in global nuclear annihilation.
In 2005, some 200 teams converged on San Francisco State to compete in the National Championship. The documentary follows four teams, from Michigan State, Harvard, West Georgia, and Berkeley in their quest for the national title.
But back in 1969, debates were slower, more theatrical, and less technical. At the 1969 National Championship, a debate team from Harvard prevailed over the University of Houston. And Michael Miller from the Houston team has never been able to let go of that defeat. Miller, now a retired lawyer, discusses his life-long obsession with debate, his suicidal ideation, his ruined romances, and the self-hate borne of the loss to Harvard 37 years earlier.
As the 2005 championship progresses and the competitors are slowly eliminated, we are left wondering who will find themselves inheriting Miller’s legacy. What emerges is not simply a chronicle of the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, but a more disturbing examination into the nature of competition itself and the American fetish with championships and champions.
The film trailer can be viewed on the Debate Team Documentary website. The film will be sold on DVD beginning around Halloween. Keep checking PFDebate.com for a chance to win a free copy of the film.
