Sugar trailer

Thanks to Jack Stark for tipping us to the trailer for Sugar, nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance last year (Frozen River won) and nommed for Best Screenplay at the Indie Spirit Awards (beat out by Vicky Cristina Barcelona). Written and directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, the husband and wife team behind Half Nelson, Sugar gets its official theatrical release April 3. It’s the story of a promising Dominican baseball player drafted to play for an Iowa team, played by newcomer and non-actor Algenis Perez Soto. The New York Times says the filmmakers sought “a new way of telling an age-old story, of hopes, dreams and what happens when life throws you a change-up.”

A talented player, a genuine prospect, is burdened not just with his own future but also that of his entire family. That desperate desire to escape, against almost impossible odds, exposes him to cultural discombobulation and the seamier aspects of the business of baseball. The psychic dislocation that results for the vast majority of those strivers, those that don’t make it, is the focus of “Sugar.”