Linsanity

Jeremy Lin grew up in California as the son of Taiwanese immigrants. He won a state title in high school, played at Harvard, and then went undrafted, with no NBA team taking him. After being cut by two clubs he found himself a game with the New York Knicks in early 2012, and over the weeks that followed became the most talked about player in the league. Evan Jackson Leong's documentary is not about those few weeks but about the years leading up to them. The camera had started following Lin before the rise, so the film has footage from a period when nobody was interested. An Asian American player being constantly underestimated, and the place Lin's faith holds in his life, are its two main strands. It screened at Sundance in 2013 and got a standing ovation there.