Boxing films perhaps don’t always get their due as a genre, which is all about to change as the BFI Southbank kicks off a new season called The Cinematic Life of Boxing.
Including classics such as Rocky and Raging Bull, along with cult favourites like Jawbone and TwentyFourSeven, and documentaries both old and new (more on which in a minute), the season is going to be a chance to show exactly why boxing has proved to be cinematic in a way that other sport films (football, for one) haven’t.
BFI Professor in Practice Dr. Clive Chijioke Nwonka, who has curated the season says, “As part of my role I get to arrange great programmes, and I'd always wanted to bring together my two passions, one is being cinema and the other is boxing.
I wanted to really get to the essence of what boxing is, and that came from research, that came from thinking about my childhood watching boxing. Any film season that looks at boxing as a sport, as an experience, as a human condition, of course naturally goes to Rocky, Raging Bull, Rocco and His Brothers and beyond, but equally there's so many films in that canon that are underappreciated, underexplored.
So I wanted the balance between those recognizable titles but also films that really speak to the grassroots boxing or the human spirit, where boxing becomes a theme or a backdrop to impactful human stories.”
Nwonka isn’t simply a boxing fan though, he participates in the sport, and this led to a unique bit of serendipity. He trains with Ryan Pickard, a former England captain and Team GB boxer, who he discovered was making a documentary about Tony Burns, the legendary coach at Repton Boxing Club, whose alumni includes Audley Harrison, Darren Barker, Ray Winstone and the Kray twins.
Pickard’s documentary, Learning The Ropes, will have its World Premiere as the opener of the season, and is not simply a portrait of an important boxing figure - Tony died in 2021 - but a look at how such figures, and the sport they encourage, change lives and bring together communities.
“I t had this Itch that needed to be scratched,” says Pickard, “I realised that Repton was going through a moment of transition and a really important era was about to end. And I knew that if it wasn't captured in that moment, whatever that special thing was, was gonna be mythical. It was gonna be, spoken about and not experienced anymore. The task was, can I capture what this is?
I didn't even know exactly what it was yet. I was going through a process of understanding what was it that made this place so special. Tony Burns was a big part of that. At the time creating the footage, Tony was experiencing dementia, but I could thread the line between everything because I knew him as what he was then. I feel like I managed to give the audience a snippet into what a special what a special place it was, what a special sport it is, what a special man he was beyond boxing.”
While the film takes you right inside the world of grassroots boxing, he says the scope of the film is far broader.
“I'm reluctant to say it's about boxing because I know people will think certain thing. Sometimes I'll say it's about life. Boxing's the vehicle, but it's about life.
The footage was filmed over three years and remarkably was created, “with zero budget, with no money.” As Pickard explains, this was a project not just about a community but also created by it: “I had the inspiration to do it and I found a team of people that believed in what I told them this was going to be, they had the skill sets that would support me in the journey of creating it. And everyone did it for nothing. Which also came from the fact that Repton is a charity. The fact it was all volunteer based at the gym meant you could really trust the people were there for the purpose that you were there. And the same with the film. It was, how far can we go with nothing financially but with an abundance of passion?”
For Nwonka, it was quite something to discover that this documentary was coming together.
“Ryan's been training me for many, many years at his gym. I think he had mentioned in passing that he had been making a film, that was a love letter to a boxing institution as a church, as he called it, but also its father figure in Tony Burns, which really interested me. Ryan kindly shared a rough version with me, and was immediately compelled by the tone of the film. I think he really exploited the documentary form in a way that is really literary. For someone who wasn't a trained filmmaker, I thought there was something very compelling about the film and it really opened layers of Ryan's own psyche, his background, and it opened up more conversation.
Fast forward to around 18 months later, when I was thinking about the boxing season, I just thought to myself, well, this could be a great film to be an addendum to the spectacular Rocky or Creed.”
This encourage Pickard to finally finish the film, and Nwonka ended up deciding to have Learning The Ropes open the whole season on 31 March. The night will feature a special Q&A with Pickard, Darren Barker and Ray Winstone, who does the voiceover in the film, and will be a huge moment for all concerned, but particularly for Pickard.
“[To Nwonka]I really appreciate the belief that you've shown in what I've created and the BFI themselves,” he says, “It's humbling. I remember the initial interaction. You’re a professor of film and I’d dipped my toe into your world a little bit but I had impostor syndrome. I'm cautious to kind of try and stamp myself with the title of film director.”
Ultimately though, it was about moving forward with what was a cathartic process for him, “understanding what boxing really meant for me and others and what what Tony Burns was... I have one thing he says in the film up on the wall here: ‘I'm only interested in people that want to learn from things and get on in life. I want them to prove things and give them some encouragement.’
Tony Burns was a very complex character, brilliance and madness were closely connected. He had your back. Like you were family if you were willing. And to be honest, if you weren't willing, he didn't even see you. I know that sounds harsh, and he was. But it wasn't just boxing, I saw him give people time about other things. If you if you show that you are willing to improve, willing to grow, willing to learn things about yourself, willing to look in the mirror.
I am that. And I'm thankful that Tony inspired that in me.”
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Nwonka says the opening scene establishes everything about the film, as it takes viewers from Bethnal Green station into the gym, walking the path that so many other boxers have taken. The sense of place is crucial
“It’s a place of worship,” says Nwonka, “Rooted in East London community and culture. You get a sense of what it is to be in East London, to be from a working class community, to come through that kind of place and go into the world, be it becoming, a boxer and a champion like Ryan did, or becoming someone who goes to work in a city or works in a community or the local council. The destination isn't always the main issue here, it's the transformation.”
And in this, the film is the perfect set-up for the full Boxing season of films at the BFI, where its themes can be seen as elemental, eternal in storytelling.
Nwonka says, “I think it's always been a struggle for boxing films to be taken seriously beyond the classics. I think this film is one that deserves to kind of be taken very, very seriously because it's not about entertainment, it's about serious things. It's about kind of life, it's about loss and death, it's about the human condition that so happens to be taking place in a local amateur boxing club in Bethnal Green. Albeit one that is revered around the world. Repton always comes up in the boxing industry, ‘oh he's a Repton kid.’
I'm looking forward to the opening because it gives an opportunity for the film to be taken seriously on its own terms.”
As for what he hopes the reception to the film will be, Pickard hopes the effect is simply on the individual viewers:
”If someone stumbles across the film, watches it and it makes them think about things slightly differently, and it's a catalyst for change in some way, then I've done my job. I know that sounds a little bit like, ‘change the world, one brick at a time, but I didn't make it for entertainment, I made it to make a difference.”
The Cinematic Life of Boxing is at BFI Southbank from 30 March – 30 April, with the world premiere of Learning The Ropes on 31 March. Tickets are available now at bfi.org.uk/boxing
