Director: Sydney Freeland
Losing a star player usually ends a championship run before it starts. Rez Ball, Sydney Freeland's 2024 sports drama, asks what a team does next when that's exactly what happens.
What is Rez Ball about?
The Chuska Warriors, a high school basketball team from a Native American community in New Mexico, are built around one exceptional player heading into their state championship push. When that player is suddenly gone, the roster is left scrambling, grieving, and uncertain whether the season is even worth finishing. A less experienced teammate is pushed into the spotlight he never asked for, forced to carry both the offense and the emotional weight the team is still processing. Coaches and players alike have to rebuild a game plan and a locker room at the same time, under pressure from a community that has pinned real hope on this run. The film tracks that rebuilding process game by game, treating the sport itself as the vehicle for a story about grief, identity, and what it takes to keep showing up when the plan falls apart.
Cast & crew
Kauchani Bratt leads the young cast as the player thrust into a starting role he isn't fully ready for. Jessica Matten and Amber Midthunder anchor the adult side of the story, with Julia Jones, Kiowa Gordon, and Dallas Goldtooth rounding out the coaching staff and community figures around the team.
Context & significance
Director Sydney Freeland, who is Navajo, sets the film within a specific reservation basketball culture rather than a generic sports-movie backdrop, and that specificity shapes how the team, the coaching, and the community pressure are portrayed. Produced for a wide streaming release, Rez Ball sits alongside other recent sports dramas that use a single season to explore something well beyond the scoreboard.
Where & how to watch
Rez Ball is available on K-Time with Persian subtitles for viewers who prefer to follow along in Farsi. This page and the wider catalog can be browsed without signing in; watching the film itself just requires a free K-Time account, on a platform designed around a Farsi interface for Persian-speaking audiences.