Our League
A working-class community at a landmark bowling alley outside Cleveland copes with unexpected changes that threaten to uproot the social fabric. In the wake of new ownership taking over and their attempts to revitalize the business and cultivate a new demographic, a respected longtime member rejoins the main house league after a ten-year absence -- and now in her late 50s, Michelle Guzowski has come out to fellow bowlers as a trans woman. Combing intimate interviews with verite vignettes from this formative season at the alley, OUR LEAGUE documents the corrosive microaggressions and small triumphs of a person and a community in transition.
Following an extended hiatus, Michelle Guzowski returned to Mahall's 20 Lanes after a lifetime of bowling there and came out to fellow bowlers as a trans woman. Although she had long felt like a woman on the inside, now, in her late 50s, she was ready to redefine her place in the league. The risk felt overwhelming; she could face bigotry, lose old friends, and feel forced to sacrifice the sport she’d adored since childhood. But Michelle always felt at home on these lanes and she needed this space and these connections as much as she needed the new relationships and the new life she’d begun to cultivate since her transition. It was a risk she had to take. But her home-away-from-home wasn’t exactly stable.
In this Rust Belt community just outside of Cleveland, where steel work and other manufacturing jobs have been steadily vanishing for decades, declining attendance recently forced the original family at Mahall’s to sell the business. Changes were swift: new ownership introduced microbrews and fancy cocktails, and opened an art gallery and a music venue alongside the nearly hundred-year-old lanes. Against the backdrop of bigger-picture cultural shifts – globalization, automation, smart phones, and millennial values – Mahall’s longtime bowling league members found the changes disorienting.
In a time of flux and redefinition, Our League is a personal and nuanced portrait of everyday people coping with change, difference, and the microaggressions and small triumphs of a person and a community in transition.