Event

FESTIVUS FILM FEST: Race Walkers with music video You Got What I Want

Race Walkers is a mockumentary about the elite American race walking brothers, Jeb and Joel Callahan. Coached by wheelchair ridden race walking great Chuck Kuel (who's sole claim to fame was qualifying for the boycotted 1980 Moscow Olympics), living in a trailer park with their mother in small town Golden, Colorado, and haunted by the legend of their Olympic qualifying deceased father, the boys must find a way to qualify for the Olympic trials in Eugene, Oregon or forever suffer the reality of small town failure and the perpetual scrutiny of the athletic world.

Raised as race walkers in a runnerâs world, the Callahan brothers have spent a lifetime coping with the reality of failed ambitions. Following in the footsteps of their world record holding father, John Callahan, who found his demise in an attempt to race walk a train across a railroad crossing, the boys are now fathered by their coach, a longtime friend and training partner of their fatherâs during the golden era of American race walking in the late 1970âs.

Older brother Jeb Callahan, a three time Olympic trials qualifier and full time high school color guard coach is taking one more shot at qualifying for the summer Olympic games after three untimely injuries suffered at the trials over his 14 year career. Younger brother Joel, hardly the pedigree his older brother has proven to be, is an unproven race walking rookie yet to finish a race and more preoccupied with his skewed religious beliefs than his interest in race walking glory.

Race Walkers provides a very personal look into the lives of this dysfunctional small town family. Starting out as piece focused on the road to the Olympic trials, Race Walkers explores a tangent vein into the real lives of the Callahan brothers, revealing the honest, unbiased truth of what it means to chase an impossible and perhaps ridiculous dream in a world that just doesnât care.