Meet Israeli Olympic Baseball Players and See Their Moving Documentary on Anti-Semitism

“Israel Swings for Gold” shows how the team was treated and fought back to win at 2021 Olympics

Delray Beach, FL – To celebrate the 75^th anniversary of the founding of Israel, Menemsha Films is proud to announce the acclaimed documentary “Israel Swings for Gold” will make its North American premiere exclusively at the family-owned Movies of Delray and Movies of Lake Worth.

Team Israel’s Olympic baseball players and the films’ creators and directors will meet fans and sign posters at the May 6 and 7 Saturday and Sunday shows for the film that details how the team overcame rampant antisemitism to win.

Showtimes for the Movies of Delray begin with daytime and evening shows Friday May 5 through Thursday May 11 at 12:30 p.m., 2:30 p.m., 4:30 p.m., 7 p.m. with an additional show at 9 p.m. Saturday

Showtimes for the Movies of Lake Worth begin with daytime and evening shows Friday May 5 through Thursday at 12:45 p.m., 3 p.m., 5 p.m., 7 p.m. and an additional show at 9 p.m. Saturday night

Team Israel Olympian Tal Erel and director Daniel A. Miller will be in person opening weekend to meet fans and sign autographs. Tal Erel will be joined by his teammate,

former Major League Baseball player Ryan Lavarnway in theaters for the second weekend.

Victory for Team Israel arrived on the playing field, but not on the Olympic podium. The 77-minute movie follows the team’s first Olympic competition. Harassed by anti-Israel protesters at exhibition games in the states, they were surprised to find an absence of goodwill in Tokyo’s Olympic Village.

Directors Seth Kramer, Daniel A. Miller, and Jeremy Newberger, creators of the first award-winning documentary, “Heading Home: The Tale of Team Israel,” present the next chapter of the story in “Israel Swings For Gold.”

With no media allowed in the Olympic Village due to COVID restrictions, the players have no choice but to record their own experiences. Mostly newly minted Israelis, they log unexpected battles against global anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.

Menemsha Films is currently screening “Israel Swings For Gold” on the North American film festival circuit, with the intention of releasing it in cinemas around the country throughout 2023 and beyond, following the premiere in South Florida.

Neil Friedman of Menemsha Films says: “One has to stop and think about the against-all-odds chances of Team Israel being only one of six countries qualifying for the Summer Olympic Games. The Jamaican bobsled team qualifying for the 1988 Winter Olympics is the best frame of reference for comprehending this incredible feat.”

The 2018 documentary “Heading Home: The Tale of Team Israel” told the story of Israel’s Cinderella run in the 2017 World Baseball Classic, seen as a testament to the Jewish will to persevere against all odds. “Heading Home” won eight film festival awards, was a hit in theaters, and is now available on all digital platforms. The Los Angeles Times called the film “a winning David vs. Goliath baseball documentary that covers all the crowd-pleasing bases.”

“As directors, we jumped into another opportunity to capture history in the making. Little did we know how much more complicated their journey would be,” says directors Seth Kramer, Daniel A. Miller and Jeremy Newberger. Their company, Ironbound Films, creates award-winning documentaries for theaters, television, and the web.

ABOUT IRONBOUND FILMS:

Seth Kramer, Daniel A. Miller, and Jeremy Newberger are Ironbound Films. In addition to Israel Swings for Gold and Heading Home: The Tale of Team Israel, they produced and directed the PBS rock doc Yung Punx: A Punk Parable, CNN cult classic Évocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie, festival and theatrical hit The Anthropologist, PBS’s Emmy-nominated The New Recruits, and their Sundance Film Festival breakout, PBS’s Emmy-nominated The Linguists.

ABOUT MENEMSHA FILMS:

Founded in 1998 by Neil Friedman, Menemsha Films is dedicated to distributing the highest-quality art house films, hand-picked from around the globe. Menemsha Films has worked for 20 years with a singular mission: “To preserve and share our Jewish stories collected from around the world.” Menemsha has built the largest library of its kind anywhere outside of Israel. Learn more at www.MenemshaFilms.com