Long before Title IX, Iowa highschool girls thrilled fans playing 6-on-6 basketball in packed stadiums. When sophomore All-State forward Jane Christopher became a mother and was cast out of the league, she challenged their notion of farm-girl femininity, demanding her right to play ball.
Long before Title IX, Iowa high school girls thrilled fans playing 6-on-6 basketball. 70,000 fans flocked to Des Moines each March to watch their week-long state tournament which was broadcast nationally and covered by outlets like the Sports Illustrated and The New York Times. The showman credited with conducting these small-town rivalries into a national spectacle was league director E. Wayne Cooley. He prided himself on empowering the “Iowa Girl” -farm girl strong but feminine- through sport. In tiny Ruthven (pop. 708), one of these girls, All-State forward Jane Christopher averaged over 40 points a game. But, in 1970 when she became pregnant in her junior year, Cooley’s rules cast her out of the league. His Iowa Girl was not a teen mom. An appeal to the league fell flat. Jane didn’t give up. Come her senior fall, the ACLU was fighting her case in federal court. Jane didn’t think of herself as a feminist — she just wanted to play ball. But empowered through sport, this “Iowa girl” permanently changed the rules so that she and all the girls after her could return to the court.
Emily’s films span fiction, documentary and interactive realms. Her work includes SANDORKRAUT, a NEW YORK TIMES Op-doc; a chimerical puppetry short THE NEVER BELL, a feminist-futurist film THE CLOCK and her lyrical feature SONG OF THE BASQUES. She wrote and produced KARLA’S ARRIVAL - short-listed for Spain’s Goya’s- and directed NBC’s Comedy Showcase. She’s written two award-winning screenplays MIDLAND and ALL THAT FOLLOWS and two of her pilots ABUELA HIERBA and INVISIBLE ISLANDS have won development awards from multiple arts councils and foundations. She’s currently directing THE BABY DIDN’T HURT HER JUMP-SHOT and also in development with a period-drama sports series THE NARRATIVE about the unlikely friendship between Muhammad Ali and George Plimpton. Recognized by national film bodies across Europe and Latin America, Emily’s earned accolades from The Smithsonian Institute, NBC Talent, Tribeca Film, HBO, Fulbright Foundation, PBS, Sundance, Marble House, IFP, Film Independent and the Sloan Foundation. Studies in Art and Music at Amherst College sparked her interest in Film; after earning a Masters at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, she dove into camera and art crews in Europe. Emily plays cello, competed as an elite triathlete speaks Spanish, French, and Basque and volunteers as a translator for detained migrants and asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border.
Iowa Greenlight Grant
Writer/Director/Editor- Emily Lobsenz
Animator/Editor - Adebukola Bodunrin
Stop Motion Animator- Hayley Morris
Producer- Andrew Sherburne
