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Cornermen

Cornermen documents the relationship between two young amateur boxers, as they overcome external pressures on them to become friends and stand up to their fathers. Aazim and Mickey are 18 when they meet during training at Moss Side boxing club. Aazim’s dad Kaleem is Mickey’s dad Brian’s boss at the local brewery, a power dynamic that makes Brian’s skin crawl. Mickey is himself ashamed of his alcoholic dad hanging around the gym constantly, trying to fight in public again and re-living his former glory days as a professional boxer. Aazim also tries to resist the narrow-mindedness of his dad, who’s made it in business by being isolated, he tells Aazim constantly that he’ll never really fit in and to be wary of the other kids in the gym. The teenagers become friends, despite their fathers, until redundancies strike at the brewery and Kaleem has to let Brian go. When Mickey is paired with Aazim at the boxing club to train and compete, Brian unleashes his internalised inadequacies and racism towards Kaleem, weaponising his son against Aazim. Kaleem reacts in kind, telling Aazim the white kid will never be trustworthy. Two camps are set, and a line in the sand is drawn. The Coach, a sage a funny man, brings Aazim and Mickey together in training under the banner of respecting their opponent. As they train alongside members of rival gangs and postcodes, they start to feel their loyalty to the Coach’s vision grow, and their respect for their fathers, consumed by hate, pales. In the final round of the ABA championships, Mickey and Aazim each with their father’s in their corner, refuse to rise for the final bell. They throw the result, in each of their favour, and reject their Dads’ behaviour.

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