Sugar: Take Them Out to the Ball Game

FLECK: I think as movie fans, we try to put ourselves in the audience, and we as fans, when we’re writing the script and making the movie, try to keep it as eyeroll-proof as possible. We’re fans of those great movies of the ’70s that dealt with that post-Vietnam era but that weren’t directly anti-war films.

BODEN: I also think that neither of us are brazen enough to feel like we have an answer to the problems in the world and the social and political context that’s working on all of us. Most of us feel a little bit overwhelmed by that stuff and don’t have simple answers or simple points to make about it. If we did, we’d want to write essays and be really awesome social-activist speakers and use that talent in that way. But since I don’t think that we have that particular talent, we’re more interested in exploring those issues through character. That’s a way for us to think about those things without having to have fast-and-true answers for them.

Seeing baseball as a journey: Boden and Fleck

Dominican pitcher Miguel “Sugar” Santos warms up in the promised land.

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More About

• Anna Boden
• Ryan Fleck
• Hollywood
• Sugar Santos
• Sundance Film Festival

In a way, the release of Sugar feels like a litmus test for the health and well-being of the American independent film, which has suffered the demise of companies like Picturehouse and Warner Independent, as well as the theatrical films division of HBO that was responsible for making Sugar.

FLECK: If we wanted to make Sugar today, I don’t think it would be possible. I don’t know who is making these films anymore. I think the money is coming out of Europe and Asia, but I don’t think American companies are making films without movie stars and [with] big chunks of the dialogue in subtitles.

BODEN: This movie kind of dictated that we were going to be working with actors who weren’t known; our next one very well could be something that has well-known actors in it. But I hope we’re able to continue making movies that excite and interest us and that don’t have easy Hollywood endings. I don’t really know. We never know if we’re going to be able to make a next movie.