THE FEATHERWEIGHT
DIRECTOR ROBERT KOLODNY
The story of Willie Pep two time featherweight champion of the world premiered at the Venice International Film Festival in 2023.
Set in the mid-1960s, The Featherweight presents a gripping chapter in the true-life story of Italian-American boxer Willie Pep—the winningest fighter of all time—who, down and out in his mid-40s and with his personal life in shambles, decides to make a return to the ring, at which point a documentary camera crew enters his life.
Painstakingly researched and constructed, the film is a visceral portrait of the discontents of twentieth-century American masculinity, fame, and self-perception.
“LOVINGLY TEXTURED…CHARTS A CHAMPION’S SLIDE INTO THE SHADOWS. The post-salad days of real-life Connecticut boxer Willie Pep are dramatized with impressive vérité verisimilitude in Robert Kolodny's Venice-premiered debut feature.”
“A poetic tribute to boxing champion Willie Pep... Technically impressive... Its narrative is subtle and laced with commentary on fragile egos, 1960s America, and the uphill battle of chasing nostalgia... Each frame of The Featherweight holds an understanding of the camera as a shape-shifting interlocutor... Madio's strong performance helps clarify the mystery... There's so much to be impressed by in Kolodny's debut.”
"Robert Kolodny's debut film is as agile as its irrepressible protagonist... [A] nifty debut feature... [The] format is inventive and ultimately effective... In the moments The Featherweightopens up, it gets to something quite profound... Relative newcomer Ruby Wolf is among the film's standout performers... [The film] is as nifty as its warts-and-all protagonist, with an inventive vérité storytelling style inspired by John Cassavetes that also evokes the era's filmmaking. Long may such boldness continue in a sub-genre that's always at risk of becoming samey."