Mariners' Wharf Film Festival - A Most Beautiful Thing

8:30 pm, or Dusk: A Most Beautiful Thing, 2020

Rating: PG
Run Time: 95 minutes (1 hour, 35 minutes)

A Most Beautiful Thing follows the story of the first African American public high school rowing team in the United States. Formed in the 1990s at Manley High School and based in Chicago's West Side, the team was made up of young men, many of whom were members of rival gangs.

Reuniting after 20 years, the team gets back on the water to prepare to race in the 2019 Chicago Sprints, the largest rowing regatta in the Midwest. In the process, Arshay Cooper, the team's captain, takes inspiration from the past and reaches out to the Chicago Police Department to show that rowing can bring even people with the most disparate of backgrounds together.

A Most Beautiful Thing features interviews with former US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Olympic coach Mike Teti, Olympic rower David Banks, and Olympic International Committee Member Anita DeFrantz. Fifty percent of the film’s profits were donated to support inclusion efforts within the sport of rowing as well as trauma research and social justice initiatives.

Mild violence, language