Free to Run

Fifty years ago running was not everyone's right. Women were barred from the marathon, and the photographs of a race official trying to tear the number off Kathrine Switzer as she ran the 1967 Boston Marathon are the best known moment in this documentary. Pierre Morath's film follows the road from there to now: the resistance of the federations, races that started in the street, the marathon becoming a mass event. The documentary covers not only the struggle of women but what the amateur rule did to runners, and the story of Fred Lebow, a co-founder of the New York Marathon. Archive footage and interviews shot today run into each other. What comes out is a summary of running turning from a right into an industry, and the film neither celebrates nor condemns that turn.