Sunday Best docos returning to ABC2

ABC2’s showcase of (mostly) international documentaries, Sunday Best, is returning next month.

These included an excellent line-up of feature docos when last this appeared.

It begins with the 1996 doco When We Were Kings which looks at the 1974 heavyweight championship bout in Zaire between champion George Foreman and underdog challenger Muhammad Ali.

In 1974, boxers Muhammad Ali and George Foreman came to the still-emerging and politically unstable African nation of Zaire for what Ali called the ‘Rumble in the Jungle’, a highly publicised world heavyweight championship fight. Documentarian Leon Gast flew to Zaire to film both the fight and a music festival (featuring B.B. King, The Pointer Sisters, and Miriam Makeba) organised by promoter Don King. Gast’s footage was shelved for 22 years due to legal and financial problems, but when it was finally released in 1996, When We Were Kings provided a vivid portrait of the controversial Ali.

At 33, he was considered past his prime for the Zaire fight, and his refusal to serve in the U.S. military on moral grounds was still an issue in the minds of many. But here, Ali displays strength, skill, intelligence, and tremendous charm, making it clear how he became one of the most renowned figures in the world of sports. And, while George Foreman is best known today as a genial commercial pitchman, he’s seen here as a strong, forbidding opponent, not especially articulate and seemingly unstoppable.

8:30pm Sunday, 2 June ABC2.