Directed, edited and produced by Angela Pinaglia
USA | 2020 | Documentary
Presented by the Film Festival Alliance for Film Festival Day #2
Awards: Best of Fest, the Audience Award, at the DC Independent Film Festival.
In the world of synchronized ice skating, Pinaglia’s Life in Synchro follows a skating season alongside the stars of today, the newcomers, the passionate amateurs and the founders of the sport as they push their teams and themselves to be too good to ignore. But will it be enough to get their sport off the fringes and into the Olympic spotlight? From a young Team USA skater with big dreams, a 65-year-old amateur skater embracing this next chapter of life with her team, to a woman who was on the first synchro team back in 1956, who is now trying to get the founder of synchro, the credit he deserves for creating the sport that gave her so much, Life in Synchro interweaves each woman’s vastly different journeys, from all around the U.S., as they and these determined teams are out to prove the staying power of synchro.
“Synchronized skating is the closest thing I have ever seen to a women’s utopia, and it’s not in an alternative reality or in the far off future. It exists in the here and now. It’s the most feminist sport you’ve never heard of.”
*** NOTE: Q&A with the director and some of the skaters! Virtual Group Watch May 23: Start the Film: 6:00pm EDT/6:00pm CST/4:00pm PDT (or watch it anytime over the weekend!). Join the Q&A: 7:00pm EDT/7:00pm CST/5:00pm PDT.
As part of the special Film Festival Day presentation, participants will include the film’s subjects Emily Fitzgerald (a former competitive skater on the Dearborn Crystallettes), Heidi Coffin (a 68-year-old adult skater on the Maine DownEasters), and Peggy MacDonald (who was a skater on the first ever synchro team in 1956 and went on to coach the first ever national champions of the sport in 1984). The Q&A will be moderated by Women Sports Film Festival’s Co-Founder Susan Sullivan
