Drummies

The scouts

Everyone expects a rousing sports doc about post-apartheid triumph, and Zinn just... doesn't give it to you—instead she lets the pandemic flatten the whole narrative arc and just watches these kids sit with disappointment, which is genuinely weird and better for it.

There's a deliberate restraint here that echoes the tradition of observational documentary, where formal patience and refusal to sentimentalize become their own kind of rigor; the film trusts its subjects' interiority without spelling it out.

The decision to let COVID be a narrative equal—not backdrop, not tragedy, just another pressure that collapses the girls' agency—reframes what could've been a conventional underdog story into something about holding dreams during suspension, and that specific choice does all the heavy lifting.

Reviews

Drummies manages to be an exemplary showcase of this particular style of documentary filmmaking: it feels effortless in a way that belies the hard work it certainly took to create. The result is an empowering portrait of these incredibly inspiring young women and the kinship they form with one another.