Murderball

Hot Docs kicked off last night with the screening of Sundance Audience Award Winner Murderball at the Isabel Bader Theatre. This isn't just a quirky little film about wheelchair rugby. Directors Dana Adam Shapiro and Henry Alex Rubin take this story further and zero in on some of the lives of the elite athletes, re-counting how they became quadriplegics and their experiences learning to control their body, have sex and deal with a society that doesn't understand them.

Forget about classic Canada-Russia hockey games, and welcome to the world championships of wheelchair rugby where upstart Canada battles the favored and hated US in the finals. Mark Zupan on the US team has received much of the press coverage - he appeared on the cover of this week's Eye - but it's American Joe Soares, captain of the Canadian squad, that makes the movie. Celebrating his 11th? wedding anniversary, his toast to the Canadian rugby team rather than his wife had the audience in hysterics.