371 Productions, under the leadership of Brad Lichtenstein, producer, and Emily Kuester, associate producer, is creating a documentary about the diversity and team dynamic of the Messwood football team. They started planning for the documentary in March, and they began filming in the beginning of July. 

Initially, not everyone was on board with the documentary.

“My first opinion was that I didn’t want [the Messwood Documentary],” said Antoine Davis, varsity football head coach. “Distraction [was] my biggest concern… I was nervous that they would think that you got kids from Messmer, and you got kids from Shorewood, and they would paint them as two different types of kids that are coming together. And that would’ve irritated me, because [they] are not two different kids. Kids are kids… We’re a football family and that’s all we are. Just a family.”

Davis thinks that the team adjusted well to filming.

“Unless the film crew is asking them a question, they don’t do anything out of the ordinary, like they’re playing up to the cameras or anything like that,” Davis said. “Young people adjust to something really easy. It’s just old people that don’t adjust as easy. So they don’t act any different. Us coaches just learn to be ourselves as well.”

Max Curro, sophomore, is a center and left guard for the Messwood football team who is featured in the documentary.

“I was kind of a little nervous with the cameras being around,” Curro said. “But now that it’s been going on for a couple months now and I met the producers and everything I’m totally fine with it, and I’m used to everything.”

Lichtenstein said that that trust is important when making a documentary.

“People really have to feel comfortable and trust us with their lives,” Lichtenstein said. “The response has been great because luckily we have a close relationship with everybody.”

“When I look around me I have people who have just an array of life experiences, and that’s a really important part of who we have working on this project,” Kuester said. “Everyone comes from a different place, everyone sees things a little differently. So, we know when we are telling a story, one of us can always relate to one of the characters in a really special way.”

Kuester and Lichtenstein hope to promote a dialogue throughout many communities about the story of the Messwood football team.

“For us the goal is to get people to engage in conversations that encourage them to expand their world,” Lichtenstein said. “Creating more engaged citizens through the stories we tell is always the goal.”

“My hope is that in like two years [or] three years when people are finally seeing this film in theaters is that there is going to be high school sophomores who are going to be able to look at the boys from Shorewood and relate to them and learn from them and maybe feel like they are in a similar position and can fight the way our boys are fighting and find unity in the way our boys are finding unity,” said Kuester.

The documentary will also focus on the Messwood football team from an academic perspective.

“[Davis] has a deep concern for the boys that he coaches; he’s always fond of saying that if he can help the kids be academically successful that will give them confidence to win on the football team” Litchenstein said. “For instance, the kids have a study hall for the first hour of practice every single day, and they also have tutors available during that.” 

After Messwood lost six of their starters in the playoff game last season due to ineligibility because of academics, coaches implemented some changes, including more time to do homework and access to help.  

“I totally support it,” Curro said. “I think that compared to last year we had only thirty minutes before practice to do our homework and now we have an hour, an hour 45 minutes to do it, and we got tutors that will help us out on a couple days of the week.”

The new academic assistance before Messwood practice has proved successful. 

“So the kids convinced me that [filming] may be good, more because of the desire to want to have their academics better (…) they’d make sure their grades were top notch,” Davis said. “That’s the only reason why I agreed to it. Once they said the academic component, I said ‘Okay.’ I actually saw their grades and every last one of them is over a 3.0. They were in the lower twos last year. So when you watch those grades you up, you go ‘Okay, alright.’” 

Litchenstein hopes to premiere the documentary at Sundance Film Festival in Utah in January.  

“That’s the premiere festival for any independent film whether its fiction or documentary for a lot of reasons,” said Lichtenshein. “Sundance really embraces independent film and holds it up on a huge platform.”