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For this installment of Slamdance coverage, we’re looking at an inspiring documentary and a gripping fictional drama based on a true story.
Standout: The Ben Kjar Story (Tanner Christensen)
Ben was born with Crouzon’s Syndrome, a craniofacial congenital affliction that affects the shape of the skull. Though surrounded by love and support from his big family growing up, strangers tended to react differently to his appearance. As he grew up, his parents put him in many different activities to find something he could enjoy and would help build self-confidence. Eventually, against doctor’s advice, they allowed him to play football and other contact sports until he landed in wrestling. Despite his size and natural ability, he became determined to succeed in the sport to the point of putting “3-Time State Champion” on his jacket well before he reached that level. On his journey to be the best, Ben also endures personal and social adversities that persevere beyond grade school.
source: Slamdance Film Festival
Standout is not just a sports documentary; It’s the chronicling of a life filled with challenges, hope, determination, and love. Ben’s story is about so much more than his wrestling career, and the mentality that he had to develop because of his diagnosis made him into the driven man telling his story to us today. In addition to interviews, we see dramatic reenactments of childhood events, sometimes with the grown-up Ben looking on. Directed and edited by Tanner Christensen, the film is incredibly well edited, with each facet of Ben’s life woven together into a very natural flow that makes for a consistently engaging and inspiring watch. I also love the choice to not blur out any of the names of people posting terrible things on social media.
Through its ups and downs, Standout: The Ben Kjar Story will move you, it will excite you, and like his family, you will never stop rooting for him to succeed.
Know Me (Edson Jean)
Kenson (Edson Jean) and his brother Jimmy (Donald Paul) are hustling to get by in their Florida neighborhood. They try their hand at landscaping, but when their mother (Carole Arty) wishes they’d get an education rather than landscaping, Jimmy leaves in a huff. The next day, Kenson finds his brother…on the news, as the man on bath salts who was shot after gnawing on another man’s face. Still reeling in the aftermath, Kenson now has to support his mother while also contending with members of their community, their church, and the media painting Jimmy in a different light than he knew him. Meanwhile, Kenson’s old friend Stephanie (Shein Mompremier), a local reporter, is pressured to alter her coverage of the story for more clicks and views, rather than telling the truth about Jimmy and what really happened.
source: Slamdance Film Festival
Based on a true story, directed and written by Edson Jean, Know Me takes a viral news story and rather than lean into the sensation, it combats it in the form of an intimate drama within Florida’s Haitian-American community. Misinformation in the media is a familiar concept nowadays, and this film shows just how debilitating such falsehoods can be to a family and the memories of their loved one. The principal cast is small, with powerful performances from all, both in English and Haitian Creole. The film is packed tight at a meager 75-minute runtime and not a moment is wasted, even in the flashbacks with Kenson and Jimmy at various stages of their lives.
Know Me is a powerful and touching film that also showcases how versatile Jean’s talents are. Even if you don’t know the whole story about Rudy Eugene, give this film a watch and see how it compares to the news stories of the time.
Check out more of our Slamdance 2025 coverage here!
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