Walk like a Man

A REAL LIFE DRAMA ABOUT BLOOD, SWEAT AND QUEERS

Narrated by former rugby champion, Ian Roberts, Walk Like a Man is a heartwarming sports documentary that traces the journey of two of the world’s best gay rugby teams; defending champions, San Francisco Fog and feisty upstarts, Sydney Convicts as they prepare to battle in the World Cup of gay rugby – the Bingham Cup.

The Bingham Cup – a biennial international event – was conceived by San Francisco Fog, to honour their former team-mate Mark Bingham, a passenger on Flight 93 who courageously stormed the cockpit and prevented the hijackers from turning their flight into a terrorist weapon. Eight teams competed in the first Bingham Cup and four years later that number grew to 30 teams from around the world. What led to the creation of a thirty-team international tournament in just 4 short years?

In seeking to answer this question, we embark on a global journey where we get to know the men and women who are a part of this phenomenon. Each player - gay or straight, man or woman - seeks to belong to something bigger; a team, a club or indeed, a community. For some it’s an opportunity to play a sport previously forbidden, while for others it’s an opportunity to reclaim a dream, previously lost.

From Steve, who joined the Convicts after having nearly given up on the idea of living a fulfilled life as a gay man “to see that there’s this cluster of people that share so much in common with me has absolutely changed my life”, to Andrew who found a surrogate family through the Fog “when you’re on the pitch you will give everything because your boys are behind you and they’re with you and it forms a bond that I don’t think I’d ever experienced before”; from Luke who is learning to trust men again after being sexually abused as a young boy, “that’s the special part of rugby for me, is interacting on a positive level with males that are caring, that you know you can trust and that wont hurt you”, to Buck, once a star athlete on a football scholarship, who gave up team sports because he felt that his two worlds - being gay and playing sport - were irreconcilable.

The documentary culminates with the Bingham Cup in NYC where archrivals San Francisco Fog and the Sydney Convicts clashed in a gallant nail biting finale.

Walk Like a Man is a real life drama about real life issues. It’s about challenge and adversity, brotherhood and belonging, inequity and acceptance, blood, sweat and… queers!