BallinEurope, the European Basketball news site

Call it “Hoop Dreams 2”: Director Ayité Ajavon has announced production of the documentary “Un rêve à construire” (perhaps best translated as “Building a Dream”), featuring as main subject the 2010 FIBA U20 European Championship MVP Andrew Albicy’s pursuit of someday playing in the NBA.

The now 21-year-old is currently playing for Paris-Levallois in the LNB and was recently seen playing for Team France in the 2011 EuroBasket tournament, on which he was Les Bleus’ youngest player.

The film will reportedly be debuting on Bemavo TV, a website devoted to talents represented by the Bemavo Corporation agency. Official trailer runs below.

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So the envelopes have been opened and the celebratory parties in Tinseltown have yet to truly begin as Hollywood’s version of the NBA All-Star Weekend draws to a close. BallinEurope spent most of the weekend flipping between the ACB, NBA, “Black Swan” and “The Kids are All Right,” and is thus in perfect mindset to present the 2011 Oscar (Robertson) awards for cinematic basketball excellence.

Wait, did BiE say “cinematic”? That particular adjective may be slightly inaccurate for the films of 2010, especially considering the key noun “excellence” is also involved: In terms of basketball movies, the good news/bad news summation for last year’s roundball cinema subgenre informs that, while the volume of full-length features, documentaries and short videos was up in 2010, a single force dominated in terms of quality. And that force was ESPN. And last year’s best basketball films were, simply put, all on TV.

First, the field in the race for the “Best Dramatic Full-Length Feature” Oscar (Robertson).

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Amidst a recent run of great basketball documentary productions, the story of a hoops maverick continues on to its third country in as many years: A production of Andrew Gallery and Cavelight Films, “My Life: Chasing the Dream” seeks to tell the story of former San Diego High baller Jeremy Tyler.

Indeed, now that Tyler has escaped the glare of American and international media, things even seem to be looking up for the lad a bit. Followers may recall that Tyler made sports history in 2008 when he decided to eschew his senior year of high school in San Diego – publicly stating he was bored and sought new challenges – to play professional basketball abroad while waiting two seasons to enter the NBA draft.

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For those of you who may have missed the fantastic ESPN 30 for 30 documentary “Once Brothers” – and this wouldn’t be surprising with the ungodly scheduling of the thing on ESPN America in European time – BallinEurope presents it in its entirety below.

If you have not seen this, please check it out; the “30 for 30” series has cranked out a number of great films, including several basketball-themed products such as “Winning Time” and “Jordan Rides the Bus,” but the stunning story of friendship and loss of friendship among the awesome Team Yugoslavia squads of the late 1980s/early 90s is truly one of the best thus far – and certainly tops for an international audience.

This is courtesy YouTube user Captain Canada for posting these clips; in the past, someone has removed these videos within days after posting – BiE supposes its their right and all, but still… – so enjoy it while you can!

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Tomorrow night will see the ESPN premiere of the latest in its “30 for 30” documentary series, “Once Brothers.” This film focuses on the Yugoslavian basketball squads of 1988-1991, dream teams that included rosters filled with names such as Vlade Divac, Drazen Petrovic, Toni Kukoc, Dino Radja, Predrag Danilović, Stojan Vranković, and Jure Zdovc.

When the former Yugoslavia fell into chaos in a bloody civil war, team cornerstones Divac and Petrovic stopped talking, their close friendship instantly shattered in a moment of time in which Divac’s motivations were misunderstood. Despite the fact that they had entered the history books together as FIBA World Champions and again as the first two Yugoslavians to play in the NBA, they would never exchange a word again.

Petrovic was killed in a car accident following the 1992-93 and until the filming of “Once Brothers,” Divac and the other Team Yugoslavia players had never dealt with the demons of war that still affected their lives nearly two decades on.

A joint effort of ESPN and NBA Entertainment, Michael Tolajian was chosen to run the show in this director-centric series. Tolajian first came to NBA Entertainment straight out of college in 1989, “back when there was maybe 30 people working there,” he says. And while Tolajian has since formed his own production company in Los Angeles and has had a hand in many projects, including the “World Series of Poker” TV program since 2006, he always seems to come back to basketball.

Maybe most notably, Tolajian produced the 2000 documentary “Whatever Happened to Michael Ray?” for NBA Entertainment, a fantastic (and cameo-packed) look at the rise and fall of late 1970s/early 80s superstar “Sugar Ray” Richardson narrated with gusto by Chris Rock. His “I Am A Celtic” is a look at the 2006-07 Boston Three Party as seen through the eyes of legends Sam Jones, John Havlicek and Bob Cousy.

Tolajian talked with BallinEurope about “Once Brothers,” a highly personal story that encompasses much of the human experience itself – as well as present some fantastic international basketball history.

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Actor Dennis Hopper died in his California home yesterday at the age of 74. Though he’ll always be remembered among cinema freaks for well-praised American films like Easy Rider (awesome) and Blue Velvet (ugh), basketball fans will always recall first his turn in Hoosiers.

The so-cheesy-it’s-good movie about a small-town Indiana high school basketball team making the state championship through wholesome values and team spirit represented a bit of a career turnover for Hopper, who starred in Hoosiers alongside Blue Velvet, River’s Edge and Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (oh yes, he did) in his bumper year of 1986; Hoosiers won him an Oscar nomination at the Academy Awards in ’87.

R.I.P. Dennis Hopper, and also Wilbur “Shooter” Flatch. See below the break for the awesomely 80s official trailer and a clip from the American Film Institute interview with Hopper about Hoosiers.

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The independent production team behind Sundance Film Festival “darling” American Streetballers (née Streetballers) has had a good May. On the 1st of the month, the rechristened movie was released by Warner Brothers Digital in North America, thereby exposing this Sundance film to over 50 million households.

Better yet for European purposes, American Streetballers is also available on iTunes and Amazon Video On Demand. Unfortunately, no subtitles are available for the film in either online or television formats. Better news here is that an August 26th release date is set for the North American DVD release of American Streetballers, and this edition will be released with Spanish subtitles. Presumably, the Spanish text will be carried over into the film’s iTunes and Amazon versions.

The limited edition DVD will continue to be available on the official site; this one comes especially BiE-recommended to would-be small-budget movie producers for the making-of documentary entitled “The Making of a 100% Truly Indie Film.”

One of the few full-length basketball movies of 2009, American Streetballers is the first feature film from director/producer/writer/lead actor Matthew Scott Krentz. As IMDB PR would have it, “Streetballers is for basketball what Field of Dreams was for baseball,” i.e. “Defining street basketball as America’s new favorite pastime” or, as an updated Terence Mann might say, “basketball has marked the time.”

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Richard the Lion-Hearted has been recast as Ralph the bravehearted: comes the casting news that Danny Huston, currently co-starring in Ridley Scott’s “Robin Hood,” (you may also remember him from such films as “Clash of the Titans” and “Children of Men”) From the Cannes Film Festivalhas won the lead role in “Playoff.”

Playoff tells the story of Ralph Klein, a.k.a. the commonly-held “Father of Israeli Basketball.” Though as a child Klein was spared from life in a concentration camp, his father died at Auschwitz. In his youth, Klein played pro basketball in Hungary and for Maccabi Tel Aviv.

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Slightly belated congratulations from BallinEurope to Israeli filmmaker Eran Riklis, recipient of funding from European Union film subsidy organization Eurimages for his biographical film based on the life of much decorated Maccabi Tel Aviv player/coach Ralph Klein.

The literal 1977 European Cup

Eurimages representatives announced Riklis’ “Playoff” as one of 14 European co-productions to receive backing for production, distribution and/or other budget concerns. “Playoff” was awarded €400,000 to assist in the business of cinema.

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It’s Academy Awards time on the other side of The Pond tonight, Hollywood’s celebration of itself (approximately 96% of a given broadcast) and movie magic in general (the remaining 4% minus obligatory sponsor plugs). So, on Tinseltown’s holiday, BallinEurope takes stock of the major international and, um, not so-international basketball-related cinematic releases of 2009.

We may as well just call these the nominations for the 2009 Ball in Europe annual Best Basketball Movie; indeed, these eight films represent a smaller bunch than the entire “Best Motion Picture” nominations pool.

Quite the disappointing year it was for the Hollywood basketball flick, too. Not only was there a distinct absence of slick crowd-pleasers like “Glory Road” or marketable hits like “Semi-Pro,” but the sole movie produced by Hollywood in 2009 is the groan-inducing “17 Again.”

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