- Welcome to Independent Lens.
I'm Pete Schwaba,
host of PBS Wisconsin's Director's Cut.
Tonight, we bring you a coming-of-age story
about a basketball prodigy named Ashley Chea.
Ashley currently plays basketball in college
for the Princeton Tigers.
Tonight's film, titled Home Court,
shows us the challenges
this second-generation Cambodian American faced
to get there.
In the mid-1990s, Ashley's parents came to America
from Cambodia as refugees
after both their families were affected
by political unrest in the 1970s.
The Cheas settled in southern California
and opened a donut store,
giving themselves a nice middle class life
in their new country.
Ashley's father joined a basketball league
and brought Ashley to his games when she was a young girl.
Ashley took to basketball immediately
and it became an obsession.
She practiced day and night,
and soon the whole family realized she had a gift.
Before long, Ashley was tearing it up on the hardwoods
in the Asian leagues in SoCal,
earning herself 25 Division One scholarship offers
before deciding on Princeton.
Home Court is directed by Erica Tanamachi.
This is her feature film directorial debut
after a career that focused primarily on short films
and commercial work.
Her foray into the feature world
was wrought with challenges from the start
due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Her first meeting with Ashley was over Zoom,
which didn't make it easier to convince a girl
about to become a high school sophomore
to let a film crew follow her around for years,
making her the subject of a documentary.
There was also a devastating tear
to Ashely's posterior cruciate ligament, or PCL,
which kept her on the sidelines for months.
In a recent interview, Tanamachi said
it was a year before she was even allowed into the Chea house
because of how protective the family was of their home life.
The project got rolling
when producer Jen Lee Smith had a conversation with Tanamachi
about Asian basketball leagues in Southern California.
This interested the director,
whose extended family was involved
in Japanese basketball leagues.
Once they decided to collaborate,
the two filmmakers did endless research
and found their leading lady
through Chea's high school coach at Flintridge Prep,
Jamie Kiyomura Chan.
After three years of shooting and post-production,
Tanamachi says she is hoping people deeply resonate
with the struggles and passion for basketball
so prevalent in their leading actor.
The hardest part for Ashley
was having a camera in her face for three years,
but she learned to adjust.
Famous baller Charles Barkley used to say
parents should raise their kids
and they shouldn't look up to him
because he is not a role model.
Ashley might not quite be as famous as Sir Charles,
but says the exact opposite.
She is hoping people see the film and her journey
as she overcame one challenge after another,
and will look up to her and think of her as a role model.
Once you get to know Ashley after tonight's film,
I highly recommend you go to the Google
and watch her basketball highlights.
She is even more of a leading lady on the court.
Home Court starts now on PBS Wisconsin,
your home for independent film.