Message with a kicker
Soccer poses a dilemma for worker in film about immigrants
Jim McKay’s latest movie is picking up some momentum. And he’s trying to roll with it. “I’m trying to go as many places as I possibly can,” he says in a recent phone interview. “The film is doing really well and striking a chord with audiences.”
The film is called “En el Séptimo Día” (On the Seventh Day).
It follows a group of undocumented immigrants living in Sunset Park in Brooklyn, N.Y., over the course of seven days.
The men are bicycle delivery guys, construction workers, dishwashers, a deli worker and cotton candy vendors.
They work long hours, six days a week.
Yet Sunday is the day for them to play — soccer, that is.
José, a bicycle delivery worker, is the team’s captain — young, talented, hardworking and responsible. When José’s team makes it to the finals, he and his teammates are thrilled.
But his boss throws a wrench into the celebration when he tells José he has to work on Sunday, the day of the finals.
José tries to reason with his boss or replace himself, but his efforts fail. If he doesn’t work Sunday, his job and his future will be on the line. But if he doesn’t stand up for himself and his teammates, his dignity will be crushed.
“I wrote the original script for the film 12 years ago,” McKay says. “I wrote it in a pretty quick couple of months. I ended up doing other films and didn’t have a chance to make a movie. I was working on TV shows pretty exclusively for 10 years. Finally, my wife said to me that I needed to make another movie. My soul needed it.”
McKay dived into the process, and casting took about seven months.
It was lengthy because he wasn’t looking for actors.
Once the film was cast, he took the cast members to soccer fields, where they practiced for four months.
“It’s been a long journey for this film to hit theaters,” he says. “This film is the kind of movie I made back in the early to mid-’90s. To actually get to direct something that I wrote and came from me is amazing.”
McKay realizes that the issues in the film, such as immigration, are hot topics in today’s world.
“These issues were issues back then,” he says. “Today they are much bigger. The film isn’t completely tied to an exact moment in time. It’s not a story about immigration or a story about the politics. It’s a story of a guy and his community, and they are immigrants. It’s a story that is timeless and universal.”