“This summer, this team, this jersey, this flag made me fall in love with basketball again,” he recently wrote on social media. John Antetokounmposumming up the results of this year in the national basketball team in his own way. In recent weeks, we have seen him and his siblings proudly sing the national anthem while keeping their eyes on the Greek flag. The rest of the year before every NBA game – that’s four times a week – Giannis watches Americans pay homage to their national emblem. Maybe he’s a little jealous…

A trailer came out a few days ago. documentary “Flagmakers”on which is his signature National Geography but also a Greek star as an executive producer. The short film – about half an hour long – takes us to Oak Creek, Wisconsin, the state that Antetokounmpo has made home over the past decade. There, the Eder Flag factory sews and ships more than five million American flags a year around the country. Really interesting? The vast majority of its employees are immigrants or refugees from all over the world.

Flagmakers tells the stories of immigrant workers who make American flags.

In the trailer for the documentary, directed by Oscar-winning Cynthia Wade, we see for the first time Radica, an elderly worker from Serbia who believes that a flag, any flag, has a “soul”. Ali, for his part, grew up around bombs in Iraq, recently arrived in America and is still trying to get used to working on a sewing machine. There is, of course, another side. African-American Sugar-Rae, a native of conservative Wisconsin, talks about his rocky relationship with his hometown in a sweatshirt with the Milwaukee Bucks logo. For all of them, the flag, which is also their work, contains different meanings and meanings.

“As an immigrant, I find this film an incredibly personal and touching story about all those who call this country home. “Each of these unique people have overcome adversity and challenges in their lives, bringing with them unique experiences and stories, creating the American flag,” said (producer) Antetokounmpo. Documentary to be released this fall Disney+ platform (hopefully also in the Greek version), it is already considered to be shortlisted for the Oscars.

If that happens, Giannis could only become the second basketball player to place a gold statue next to the rest of his career’s glittering trophies. The late Kobe Bryant did it first in 2017 when he moved everyone at the awards ceremony with the beautiful “Dear Basketball” sign. Antetokounbo, for his part, after Anodo, a film about his family that was released in the summer, it is clear that he wants to use the “platform” that his huge success in sports gives him to leave the corresponding social footprint.