Taglines: Prove them wrong.
Girlfight movie storyline. At 18, Diana has a chip on her shoulder; she’s close to expulsion from high school for fighting, her mother is dead, her dad is surly, the popular girls at school set her teeth on edge, she knows men can cause pain. When she picks up her younger brother at a Brooklyn gym where he boxes to please his father, she decides she wants to train.
Hector, a coach, reluctantly agrees to teach her. It’s soon clear to him that Diana has talent; he pushes her. She spends time with another young fighter, Adrian, who has a girlfriend, but Diana intrigues him and stirs real feelings he tries to articulate. She, too, must accommodate her toughness and ironic detachment to her feelings for him.
Girlfight is a 2000 American sports drama film written and directed by Karyn Kusama and starring Michelle Rodriguez in both of their film debuts. It follows Diana Guzman, a troubled teenager from Brooklyn who decides to channel her aggression by training to become a boxer, despite the disapproval of both her father and her prospective trainers and competitors in the male-dominated sport.
Kusama wrote the screenplay for Girlfight after learning to box, wanting to make a film about the sport with a female protagonist. Although she struggled to find financiers for the film’s $1 million (U.S.) budget, the production was eventually funded by John Sayles, Maggie Renzi and the Independent Film Channel. Rodriguez was cast in the lead role, despite having never acted before, and trained for four months to prepare for the role before filming commenced in New York and New Jersey.
About the Production
Girlfight premiered on January 22, 2000 at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize. It was released theatrically on September 29, 2000 and grossed $1.7 million at the box office. The film was well received by critics, who offered particular praise to Rodriguez for her performance and Kusama for her direction. Both Kusama and Rodriguez received numerous accolades, including two National Board of Review Awards, two Independent Spirit Award nominations, and two Gotham Awards.
Girlfight was written and directed by Karyn Kusama, marking her feature film debut. Her aim was to subvert “the classic boxing story” with a female lead, having taken up boxing herself in 1992 at the famous Gleason’s Gym in Brooklyn. After writing the script, she struggled to persuade production companies to finance the film; numerous producers suggested that Kusama cast a white woman in the lead role rather than a Latina and felt that having a female protagonist was “unappealing [and] unbelievable”.x
Maggie Renzi, Sarah Green and Martha Griffin eventually agreed to produce the film, and found a financier in 1999 to provide the $1 million (U.S.) budget. Two days before pre-production on the film was set to begin the financier backed out, but Renzi and her partner John Sayles—an independent filmmaker and Kusama’s former mentor—decided to provide funding for the film’s entire budget themselves. The Independent Film Channel later contributed $300,000 towards the budget.
Kusama initially sought to cast a professional actor to play Diana but felt that many of those who auditioned were overly feminized and “polished” and decided to cast an untrained actor instead. Michelle Rodriguez, who had worked as a film extra but had never auditioned for a speaking role before, attended an open casting call for the lead. Although Kusama described Rodriguez’s audition as “a disaster”, she won the role because out of 350 auditionees Kusama “could not find anyone who could come close to her in physical power”. Since Rodriguez was not a boxer, she trained at Gleason’s Gym five to six days a week for four months in preparation for filming, as did Santiago Douglas, who played Adrian.
Girlfight was filmed over 24 days in New York and New Jersey. For scenes inside the gym where Diana and Tiny train, the filmmakers shot in a warehouse in Jersey City. The initial boxing sequences were shot from a spectator’s view outside of the ring but later sequences were filmed more intimately from inside the ring. Cinematographer Patrick Cady used camera rigs that allowed the actors to hit him or the camera itself to mimic the feeling of being hit.
Girlfight (2000)
Directed by: Karyn Kusama
Starring: Michelle Rodriguez, Santiago Douglas, Jaime Tirelli, Paul Calderon, Elisa Bocanegra, Ray Santiago, Shannon Walker Williams, Thomas Barbour, Iris Little Thomas
Screenplay by: Karyn Kusama
Production Design by: R for language
Cinematography by: Patrick Cady
Film Editing by: Plummy Tucker
Costume Design by: Marco Cattoretti, Luca Mosca
Art Direction by: Miguel Fernandez
Music by: R for language.
Distributed by: Sony ScreenGems
Release Date: September 29, 2000
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