Olympic Pride, American Prejudice

Draper constructs a concisely assembled editorial package that covers the essential historical backstory of the 1936 Games while building drama during the competition and establishing a consistently affecting emotional arc throughout.

History is not neat and tidy, however much we wish it could be, and Olympic Pride, American Prejudice is more than adept at getting to the truth about perhaps the most mythologized event of the modern Olympic movement.

Olympic Pride, American Prejudice tackles its subject in a straightforward manner freed from dramatic license and the fear of box office failure.

[A] deft and comprehensive documentary.

As a documentary, “Olympic Pride” is a little on the staid side. The film’s writer-producer-director, Deborah Riley Draper, works in a variation on the Ken Burns style.... Yet she does an absorbing job of capturing a historical moment that was even more fraught than it’s generally imagined to be.

Riley doesn't portray this fellowship of black athletes as victims, but as pioneers proving themselves against white supremacy behind enemy lines. And yet this doc also pulls them back down to earth as mere men and women competing against the odds, human to human.