Directed by James Pellerito and David Barba (Be Good Johnny Weir), American Cheerleader focuses on the journey of two teams—Burlington in New Jersey, and Southwestern in Kentucky—as they simultaneously work toward the National High School Cheerleading Championship. The film, which screens Saturday as part of the Dance on Camera festival at the Film Society, achieves profound intimacy through touching personal stories, which causes the climactic competition to pack an emotional punch as the audience feels what’s truly at stake.

Dance on Camera is an annual five-day series honoring ballet and contemporary dance personalities through documentaries and narrative films, while also demonstrating dance’s capacity to change lives and contribute to well being.

FilmLinc spoke with the directors James Pellerito and David Barba about why cheerleading deserves more respect, creating trust, and how cheerleading teaches valuable life lessons.

FilmLinc: What attracted you to the topic of cheerleading?

James Pellerito: You know, actually we were approached by a company called Milojo Productions—that’s Kelly Ripa’s production company—to make a documentary about high-school cheerleading. When we were first approached about this—to produce and direct it—our only points of reference were the National High School Cheerleading Championship that’s broadcast every year on ESPN—and it plays in reruns so you see it at some point—and the movie Bring It On… So we sort of took that as our inspiration. We felt strongly that we wanted to feature the national championship and also follow two teams from different parts of the country on their journeys.

FL: What specifically about the idea excited you?

JP: I think seeing that the 12 girls on the team actually have to work as one unit [interested us], so it’s really like any other high-school team sport—the camaraderie that you have on any other team. But it also has this performance element and you don’t have the entire length of a basketball game, for example, to win. You have 2 minutes and 30 seconds so there’s very much a “do-or-die” aspect, which is also very exciting.

David Barba: I would also add that I think we [realized] that everyone has a pre-conceived notion of what cheerleading is—and we were no different—so we were interested in exploring those notions and seeing if they were true. What we found is that these young women are really disciplined, dedicated, great team members… and cheerleading really helped them get through difficult times in their lives. So we really explored some of those stereotypes that are out there. We also realized that there are not a lot of sports movies that follow women. A lot of the competition sports movies follow hockey or football and it’s a very masculine field. So it appealed to us to bring women athletes to light more in a competition setting.

FL: There’s a lot in the film about cheerleading not being taken seriously, or not being considered a “real sport.” Would it be accurate that the film is kind of a reaction to that? It’s an argument for why this should be taken seriously?

DB: I think yes in a way… It still has its roots in school spirit and sideline cheering, but you can’t deny after watching the movie that these young women are killing themselves [with] their training schedule and [they’re] putting it all on the line for 2 minutes and 30 seconds. You know, all the acrobatics and the stuff that they’re doing, it’s hard stuff to do.

JP: But that’s why it’s [clear]: the girls are athletes. Definitely.

FL: It seems obvious why you would pick Burlington since they had won the two previous championships, but how did you decide on Southwestern as the other team to focus on?

DB: Well, I think one of the things that we knew was that Kentucky is a powerhouse state in terms of cheerleading. We knew we wanted a Kentucky team to represent that tradition of cheerleading while Burlington was kind of the new kid on the block. There were a few teams that we were considering, and after talking to different coaches, choreographers, people at Varsity Spirit, we found that Southwestern was an up-and-comer. They had been in the finals for many years at that point and had placed fourth the year before, so they were strong contenders. Somebody had seen them recently and thought that they had a strong team so it seemed like the right fit. It was an interesting swap because we made Kentucky the underdog team where usually the “traditional” team would not be the underdog.

FL: I would also imagine that the coaches would have a lot to do with your decision.

JP: Parts of this documentary could not have worked out better for us because we really didn’t know [Southwestern head coach] Britani very well when we first started the process. But the more we filmed, the more people started opening up to us, and we started learning more about each individual person. Britani is an amazing person. It just so happened that she was coming off a rough divorce, and she really used cheer to get her through. We couldn’t have asked for a better coach.

DB: And I think having her with her mother—they really complement each other. It was interesting to see the mother-daughter dynamic. Of course, they were wary when we said there’s going to be a film crew coming and following your every step, but they very quickly relaxed into it and had trust in us.

FL: For me the personal elements are really what make the movie work. Hearing about Britani’s divorce, deaths in the family, past failures, and other things that are really tragic. These elements really make the emotional impact all the more effective. Were you guys at all surprised by how seriously they took this?

DB: I wouldn’t say I was surprised. Once we had been at practice several times and we saw the way Serena runs practice or the way Britani runs practice, we knew that this was serious, this was not fun and games. They were there to work. I think we were really grateful that all of these people opened up and talked about some difficult experiences like Britani, Jill and her mother, Carly from Burlington and her stepdad. I think all of that was really amazing and couldn’t have happened until later in the filming after we had built more trust. What we found, and were really thrilled with was that all of those people [after seeing the finished film] were really happy with how their stories were portrayed. They’ve also gotten feedback from other people: Britani [has heard] from people who’ve gone through similar situations and found it really refreshing to see something so open and honest about divorce.

JP: I think we were really pleased that they did take it as seriously as they do—in the same way that any other athlete in high school takes competing on a sports team seriously. It feels very normal actually. I think the one thing that was surprising was how much of a family the teams are. It’s the family quality of the team that really helps the girls get through some of the tragedies in their lives.

FL: I was really struck by the scene when Leanza (a senior cheerleader at Southwestern) is talking about falling at the previous year’s championship. You really see how much pressure she puts on herself and it was really heartbreaking to me. Do you guys think it’s too much pressure for them? Is it unhealthy?

DB: Well I think it’s a good question… it was really raw and present for her when we were talking about it and it had been over a year. It really hit her hard. But part of what’s so great about cheerleading is that these are kinds of life lessons—picking yourself back up from really difficult situations and moving forward in a positive way. I think they all took that to heart. I’m not sure it’s too hard because life is harder than cheerleading, so if you can get through something that seems really hard [in the context of cheerleading], then you can learn how to do it in real life.

JP: I think also to put it into perspective a little bit—Somerset in Kentucky is a very small town, and football and cheerleading are very important. So when the championship is broadcast on ESPN in a very small town, people see it. It was tough for Leanza to go through that.

FL: I found the background on Jeff Webb—founder and CEO of Varsity Spirit Corp.—to be pretty fascinating. Did you ever consider doing more of a “History of Cheerleading?”

DB: I think that’s actually what they approached us with initially—doing a sort of history of it. Our feeling was that that was not going to be a compelling film for the kind of audience that we wanted to reach. A better way to approach it was to follow two teams in real time that are going head-to-head. That way, you actually see them in action and then you flash back to how cheerleading has evolved. So you get a little bit of the history but it doesn’t feel like a history lesson. We really wanted to strike the right balance between those two.

JP: Jeff Webb’s legacy really is the National High School Cheerleading Championship—I guess the first one was in 1980—so we definitely wanted to highlight the history of it but we wanted to put it into a contemporary context.

FL: You guys expanded your documentary about Johnny Weir [Pop Star on Ice] into a series for Sundance [Be Good Johnny Weir]. Would you ever consider doing the same thing for cheerleading?

JP: We would consider it, sure.

DB: I think with the right team and the right story, yes. There’s a little bit of a Friday Night Lights feel to it, but from the cheerleading perspective.

JP: If it were these two teams, we would do it in a heartbeat.