Coach Nison – by Charlie Hoxie

A table tennis champion from Tajikistan opens a club in Brooklyn where he trains the next generation of talent

Coach Nison by Charlie Hoxie is part of Frameworks, a series of in-depth documentary shorts examining extraordinary New York characters. Filmmaker and editor based in Brooklyn, Hoxie’s no stranger to attractive stories. His first short doc was a 22-minute look at the Passive House method of energy-efficient building, aired on NYC-TV after an international festival run.

In 2016, he edited Mexican-Ethiopian filmmaker Jessica Beshir’s short films Hairat (premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival) and He Who Dances On Wood, premiered at the 2017 Hot Docs Film Festival and among the 10 best short films of 2017 (available online) selected by Good Short Films.

Coach Nison follows Nison Aranov, a man who was saved from a troubled youth the day he met his table tennis coach in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. 40 years later, he has a ping pong club of his own in the basement of a parking garage in Brooklyn, where he trains the next generation of champions – most notably, a mega-talented Israeli immigrant named Mishel. Nison believes Mishel has what it takes to make the American national team, but his skills will be put to the test at a tournament in Westchester that attracts the best talent in the country.

A personal story of migration and opportunities, training and development, inclusion and solidarity. The film focuses on Mishel’s state of mind. The subtle editing and effective sound design allow us to feel his skills, his dreams, his deep sense of community.

Alessandro Zoppo Editor-in-Chief @ Good Short Films

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