VIFF 2023 | ESPN on Public Shaming – 'I'm Just Here for the Riot'

"You have to kinda put yourself in the mindset of 2011."

Vancouver International Film Festival

VIFF 2023—ESPN relives the infamous hockey riots that started after the Vancouver Canucks' devastating game seven home loss in the 2011 NHL Stanley Cup Final. Co-directed by local documentary filmmakers Kathleen S. Jayme (a two-time VIFF Audience Award-winner) and Asia Youngman, I'm Just Here for the Riot dissects public shaming through our city's disobedient history of disapointing hockey losses.

Also aimed at non-Vancouverites not totally familiar with our dysfunctional penchant for post-sports rioting, Jayme and Youngman take a more objective, removed approach to putting the events of June 15, 2011, into a proper context of mob mentality versus online bullying while weaving in the predecessor 1994 riot. It makes this local sports issue so much larger and broader as social media was just starting to become ubiquitous in the way it is today.

As a recovering diehard Canucks fan who was in his early twenties (similarly aged to many of the regretful rioters) in 2011, it's hard to revisit the many of the embarrassing crimes and subsequent consequences documented in I'm Just Here for the Riot. However, it's still meaningful to experience and reevaluate the actions, perpetrators, and loss of dignity we experienced after the crushing defeat of a hockey team in true 30 for 30 sports documentary fashion.

I'm Just Here for the Riot screens at the 2023 Vancouver International Film Festival as part of the Special Presentations series at the Vancouver Playhouse on October 2nd and 8th and Park Theatre on October 5th.


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