A Wider Angle Film Series: OVER THE LIMIT

For July, A Wider Angle, our monthly foreign and independent film series, will screen the 2017 film Over the Limit, a sports documentary about a Russian rhythmic gymnastics competitor named Margarita Mamun, focusing on her brutally difficult training regimen and preparation for the 2016 Olympics in Rio. It is a timely selection as we are on the cusp of the 2024 Olympics in Paris scheduled for August.

The film is directed by Polish filmmaker Marta Prus, who herself is a former rhythmic gymnast, and it is perhaps that personal experience that allows her to effectively capture how the sport emphasizes both physical strength and agility while also focusing on seemingly external beauty and grace. Described by some as the Black Swan of sports documentaries, the film's relatively short (less than 80 minutes) but intense narrative will certainly give viewers a sense of the physically and emotionally rigorous work that athletes in this sport (and others) put in ahead of the Olympic competitions later this summer.

In Russian with English subtitles. (Running time 77 minutes)

For a review of the film, click https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/over-the-limit/

A Wider Angle film series is made possible through funding provided by the Friends of the Library.