A lot of heart went into Anthony Ciancio’s bocce ball documentary.
“How we Roll” is the story of Ciancio’s father, Mike, the man behind the bocce ball league in Elmwood Park. And it’s about how a centuries old game is thriving, bursting at the seams and bringing together friends, family and competitors all year round in a Chicago suburb. The film took years; it marks a career swerve for its director and it survived a pandemic.
In September, the film got a showing at the Oak Park Film Festival, where it won a Best Documentary award. It was the first public screening of Ciancio’s first full-length documentary and it went well.
“When you’re at a film festival, you can feel the energy in the room,” he said. That night, he realized the film was good.
“You never truly know how a film is going to resonate with people until you see it with strangers,” Ciancio explained.
But now, this week, Oct. 5, it has its hometown debut. This time, it’s not strangers — it’s personal.
“The Oak Park Film Festival was great, but these are the players themselves, the people in town — the people who run the league,” Ciancio said. “It’s a lot of pressure, I guess, but I’m excited.”
Ciancio knows these people well; he’s played alongside them for years. In 2014, village officials asked his father to organize a league. These days, it’s a year-round affair, and every slot filled and games near daily, on courts inside or outside.
“You can see it from the film how much it’s grown,” Ciancio said. “They started with eight teams in 2014, now it’s 150 or so teams and there’s a waiting list.”
Ciancio said he’s been playing since the league’s second year, and he would have started that first year but it filled up too fast. He only got a slot the second year because a team dropped.
It’s a deceptively simple game — teams roll bocce balls along a small pitch, each team aiming to get as close to the jack, or pallini, ball as possible. Each match is over in less than a half-hour. The game is a measure of skill, athleticism and some lucky breaks, and it’s a casual game neighbors and friends can play while they catch up.
Ciancio said players drive in from all over the Chicago area to get back to Elmwood Park for bocce nights. It’s one of the things that brings him back.
“I live in the city so for me it’s a good tether to where I grew up,” he said. “It’s like that for a lot of other people, too. They’ve since moved out of Elmwood Park but they drive in for bocce night. In my life, I’ve never seen anything like it in that neighborhood, with that many people.”
Ciancio was, for about two decades, a futures trader on the stock market.
“But I was always wanting to get into films even as a child,” he said. “I always wanted to go to film school and finally I just hit a wall where I was like, ‘if I don’t do this, I’m never going to do it.”
He finally went to DePaul and while in film school, he realized the perfect subject was right there in front of him.
“I was like, I’m playing in this league, and learning about documentaries,” he said. “How can I not document what’s going on around me?”
What would become “How we Roll” began in 2021, just after the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I had a lot of shoots planned,” Ciancio said. “I wound up getting sick myself. I’ve had it a few times, but I got really laid up. That was a big obstacle and I thought, ‘I won’t be able to finish this that summer season.”
Then his wife got pregnant and that was another pause. Finally, in 2023, he returned to the project and he worked through 2024. Technically, he’s still working on it—mostly last minute soundtrack stuff. But mostly, it’s done.
“Bigger picture is we’re submitting to film festivals now and we will be submitting now into next year,” he said.
But first, before it’s out in the wide world, it comes home, to the people and the players who know Ciancio and love the game.
The Elmwood Park showing is at 5 p.m. Oct. 5 at the Recreation Center, 2 Conti Parkway.
Jesse Wright is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
