AIR was honored with the Visionary Icon & Creator Tribute by The Gotham Film & Media Institute, at the 33rd Annual Gotham Awards, live from Cipriani Wall Street on Monday night. The newly developed award, created for the 2023 show, is dedicated to appreciating filmmakers who bring cultural icons to life.
AIR, a biographical sports film directed and produced by Ben Affleck, portrays the story of a young Michael Jordan signing a sneaker deal with Nike, producing not just a revolutionary partnership, but in turn one of the most iconic brands in footwear history, Air Jordan. The film is filled with a star-studded cast including Matt Damon playing Nike executive Sonny Vaccaro, Affleck acting as Nike co-founder Phil Knight and Viola Davis playing Deloris Jordan, amongst others.
Alex Convery, writer of AIR, had written the script as a spec script (a non-commissioned screenplay) during the COVID-19 pandemic, while he binge-watched Netflix’s The Last Dance, a docuseries about Jordan’s career. He’d also been inspired by his love for Jordan as a child, being brought up in suburban Illinois.
“I mean the characters were just so fun to write and growing up as a Bulls fan in Chicago in the 90s, it was so fun to find a project that was adjacent to the thing I was most passionate about as a kid,” said Convery.
After graduating from the University of Southern California’s film writing program, he worked as an assistant, writing from nights to weekends, hoping that one of his works would grant him his big break in the entertainment industry. With the major success of AIR and the numerous awards won, including Gotham’s Visionary Icon & Creator Tribute, he couldn’t be more proud of his first produced screenplay.
“You know this was one that I thought would never get made and truly I kind of wrote it as a writing sample and just hoped it would book me another job,” said Convery. “So to see how far the whole film has gotten has been a really surreal journey for me.”
To see the full interview, click this link here.
Photo Credit: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Gotham Film & Media Institute
