How to tell Gunshots from Fireworks

The scouts

Everyone wants to make a sports doc that 'transcends' the genre—this one actually does it by refusing to pick a lane, and that refusal is the whole point, which is either genius or self-indulgent depending on your tolerance for ambiguity, and I respect that it doesn't care which.

Groth's formal gambit—treating documentary portraiture as essay film, 'based on' rather than 'about'—marks a sophisticated reckoning with how we watch and frame bodies in motion; the precision of that framing device elevates this into genuine critical conversation with the sports film tradition.

The choice to blur the documentary seam, to let the athlete's lived experience dissolve into something more impressionistic and sensory, is technically risky but it's the decision that makes the whole thing breathe—suddenly you're not watching a subject, you're inside a moment.

Reviews

Co-directed by Tsellot Melesse and captured with an enthralling flair for otherworldly images by cinematographer Anton Beliaev, director and editor Philipp Groth creates a documentary that is more akin to a tone poem dipped in color shades that seem to mostly exist in the witching hours before and after sunset or the radiant dark blue of a magical nighttime atmosphere. The striking cinematography helps differentiate the film from standard sports docs.

How to tell Gunshots from Fireworks still presents itself in the guise of a typical inspiring sports short documentary, but the distinguished approach of the film elevates the subject matter to something more along the lines of a visceral experience. I imagine that this strange combination reflects what Melat Kejeta must have felt, preparing for the most important competition of her athletic life, all the while triggers of her traumatic past still haunt her.