Screening of 'The Rugby Boys of Memphis" and Q&A with PepsiCo
Live on Zoom - Wednesday, September 16th at 3:00PM PST
At an inner city high school in South Memphis Tennessee an unlikely sport has arisen, and with it a team of untapped potential. In a gritty inspirational short documentary film directed by Oscar nominated and Emmy winning David Darg, the Rugby Boys of Memphis follows the Power Center Academy’s first rugby team and its captain, Calvin Gentry.
The film was produced by Gatorade in conjunction with PepsiCo’s Content Studio and went on to be selected at ten prestigious Film Festivals in non-branded categories.
The goal for the brand was two-fold: to show the power of sport in changing student athlete’s lives and to produce content that could live alongside non-branded/ brand funded content in the festival circuit. The film was distributed on ESPN, Sports Channel and El Rey Network without a media buy, and later on Amazon Prime Video, in-flight on United Airlines.
Hosted By
Ty Braswell
Founder
Creative Digital Strategies
Ty’s career has been an eclectic journey working with a wide variety of startups and Fortune 100 companies to generate new revenue streams that build digital businesses. His passion is bringing together creatives, tech folks and business development execs to collaborate in a cohesive environment that creates vanguard innovative products and cutting-edge campaigns.
Featuring
Alison (Ally) Polly
Head of Content Development
PepsiCo
Ally Polly is the Head of Content Development at PepsiCo’s in-house studio where she leads development, production and distribution for long form content including scripted and unscripted. Working across the brand portfolio she has produced award winning work for Gatorade, Pepsi, Pepsi Black, 7Up, Aquafina, Mountain Dew and Pure Leaf Tea. Her work has been selected by more than 20 film festivals including Sundance, Tribeca, TIFF , Cannes, the Los Angeles Latino Film Festival, Mexico International Film Festival and more. Most recently she produced and sold a six part docuseries to ESPN LATAM and NBCU. This past year at the Sundance Film Festival Ally was honored to be among the first to receive the Brand Storytelling Honor Roll Award. A graduate of Brown University, she later studied documentary filmmaking at NYU with the legendary director Albert Maysles.
David Darg
Director
David Darg is an Oscar nominated and Emmy winning director, cinematographer and film editor. He received critical praise for his documentary Body Team 12 which garnered him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject) at the 88th Academy Awards. Darg is the co-founder of RYOT a US media company acquired by Verizon in 2016. He was named one of Esquire Magazine’s "2012 Americans of the Year" for his work in Haiti as well as a "Hollywood Maverick" by Details magazine for his documentary work in crisis and disaster zones. In addition to his Academy nomination and Emmy awards for directing, Darg is an Emmy winning editor having won in 2017 with Body Team 12 and nominated in 2018 with Fear Us Women. His films have won numerous film festival awards including Tribeca where he has premiered 5 documentaries.
Darg spent over a decade as a first responder to natural disasters. He lived in China for 1 year following the 2008 Sichuan quake and lived in a Haiti for 2.5 years after the quake there. As a journalist and photographer Darg has been published in National Geographic, BBC, Reuters and numerous US publications. Darg is the recipient of the 2015 Nelson Mandela ‘Changemaker of Peace’ award.
Calvin Gentry
Calvin Gentry was born in Memphis Tennessee and began playing rugby in the 9th grade at Power Center Academy. He is currently a Senior at University of Memphis majoring in Sport Management. His aspirations involve playing professional rugby, coaching, and mentoring kids in the low-income communities.
Shane Young
Shane Young was born in New Jersey and began playing rugby at age 10. He became a teacher in Memphis in 2012 at age 22 and co-founded MICR. He has received numerous awards including the “ Visionary Award” from the Tenness Public Health Association ( 2019), Memphis “40 Under 40” ( 2016), The Spark Award ( 2016) for best non-profit with under $1MM budget, and the Alumni of Distinction Award from Florida Gulf Coast University ( 2015).
