“There was power in the truth”

An interview with Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk, directors of Athlete A

From the directors of the acclaimed films Audrie & Daisy and An Inconvenient Sequel, Athlete A uncovers the truths behind the rampant abuse across USA Gymnastics: from the Olympic doctor who was convicted to the dozens of coaches that have been banned. Equal parts devastating and inspiring, Athlete A follows the IndyStar reporters as they reveal the extensive cover-up and culture of cruelty that was allowed to thrive within elite-level gymnastics, the attorney fighting the institutions, and most importantly, the brave whistle-blowers who refuse to be silenced, including Maggie Nichols, once dubbed “Athlete A.” Filmmakers Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk discuss the film’s current resonances with the Me Too movement, corruption in competitive sport, and building an emotional story.

The world is obviously very different when you started this film, vs. now when it’s coming out into the world. So many of us are in a different headspace now, so how are you thinking about this film differently?

Bonni Cohen: The most obvious thing is that we were going to release the film in the run up to the Summer Olympics. It was going to be the first time that U.S.A. Gymnastics was going to put athletes out there publically since the huge scandal. And while there has been some change, there has not been systemic change. We see the film as a battle cry, so worldwide audiences could have seen that these athletes may not very well have been supported, even after the exposure of this scandal. That’s not happening now, of course, but in a weird way, what we’re finding with the journalists we’re talking to now is that there’s a lot more time to be reflective about what’s in the film, and more time to consider it deeper. So maybe we can even shine a brighter light on exposing the great work of the investigative journalists and the scandal. So potentially, it feels like an opportunity.

The Larry Nassar scandal was huge, and there was lots of press, books, at least one other documentary out there, so what do you think it’s important for people to know about this film, and that audiences haven’t seen the whole story.

Jon Shenk: We never looked at this as a Larry Nassar film. We saw this as a film about an ensemble group of amazing people that came together in all these incredible ways to expose a system that’s been abusing young athletes for decades. It’s almost like a Catholic Church level scandal that involved multiple abusers over a long period of time. That became clear to us when we met Jennifer Sey, who is a producer on the film and wrote the book Chalked Up: My Life in Elite Gymnastics Paperback. She helped us understand early on that there was a culture of abuse in gymnastics. In simple terms, it’s a sport that starts with young girls, starting at five years old and “peaking” in their mid-teens. And it’s a sport controlled by middle-aged men, mostly, and that dynamic could be dangerous in any circumstances, but especially with the incentive of money and metals, and with no policy and no oversight. U.S.A. Gymnastics, essentially, did everything they could to not prosecute these people. And it wasn’t just one bad guy. And there wasn’t just one victim. So we set out to tell the story of the heroes: the journalists and the survivors who helped unwind that morass.

Jennifer Sey, for me, is the crux of the film in terms of what she says about the systemic cruelty involved in the sport. She has that line about how Americans we want to win at everything, and the idea that we would sacrifice our young to win should disgust us. Did that strike you as pivotal, as well.

Cohen: That’s the crux of why we wanted to make the film, this new lens of looking at Olympic sports. And how we consume it as Americans. Gymnastics is the most watched and the most sponsored and has the most advertising dollars thrown at it, so it’s a beloved area for Americans. But the idea with the film is that you’re going to find out how these Olympians are created, and it’s this dark and abusive space. And in the end when you start to analyze it, we’re all culpable of it. How could we all let this go on?

Many of these women had already come forward by the time you made this film publically, but were there discussions in making this film about: are we worried about exposing them further to criticism or attacks?

Shenk: We learned from Audrie & Daisy that one of the big worries and concerns that survivors have, and those who work with survivors, is not wanting to reinjure them in any way or triggering them, and being sensitive to how you work with them. That was true in this case, but it’s safe to say that the survivors that appear in the film were quite clear about their desire to go public. They all had early trepidation back when the abuse happened. But once they got the sense later that they saw an opportunity where USAG and some of the powerbrokers could be exposed, they wanted to use the power of the details of what happened to them. They knew the power of that. They told us that. We asked them how comfortable they were and generally, they wanted to tell us more and be as detailed as possible, because they knew that there was power in the truth.

There is an obviously a connection to Audrie and Daisy, your last film. You’ve made some films that are different, abut climate change, so what’s the connection and why did you go back to this subject matter?

Cohen: Actually, Audrie & Daisy was a traumatic film to make, and to be honest, the last thing we wanted to do was make another film about sexual assault. We were definitely leaning away from it, but when Jen Say came forward and told us all the reasons she wanted to do it and she had the access—the journalists, the prosecutor, and the all people involved at the beginning—we started to think about it less as a film about sexual assault, and more about exposing the truth through journalism, and the brave women, and that was exciting to us. While yes, Nassar was the bad guy in the story and he was a sexual predator, we were interested in going after not only Nassar, but more U.S.A Gymnastics and the institutional problems, which we hadn’t really done before.

So there’s this moment, near the end of the film, and I don’t won’t to give it away explicitly, but it reminded me of the ending of Audrie & Daisy, where you have a sense of this being a much bigger story and about a lot more women. Can you talk about that moment and whether you always knew that was going to be an emotional climax?

Shenk: Of course, as you know, part the story of the “Me Too” movement is that so many women (and men) have been through these troubling circumstances. We didn’t know how that would come out; we didn’t know how that would play in the film. Actually, we started filming Athlete A in 2017, before that victim impact statement happened in the Michigan courtroom, and that was the most public thing that happened in the Nassar story. When you have something that powerful in your tool chest as a filmmaker, it presents an editing challenge. We worked with the same editor as Audrie & Daisy, and we kept moving that scene around. As soon as you see that cathartic emotional moment, it’s a bit of a mic drop. And we showed it to people, and they said, “Why isn’t this the end of the film?” But there was a fair amount of logistics that happened after that, so we had to pivot back in the rest of the story, and keep up the momentum. But in a way, that victims impact statement scene is the opposite side of the same coin in Audrie & Daisy. In that film, you get the sense that there’s so many other women who are suffering, and we need to acknowledge those people, whereas Athlete A, it’s a rising up, it’s this incredibly hopeful and beautiful moment and as amazing as some of the athletic feats you see in the film.