A still from the film 'Friday Night Blind' featuring a happy bowler.
'Friday Night Blind' features Judy, one of a trio of vision-impaired bowlers.
About 13 years ago, Milwaukee resident Scott Krahn, a veteran advertising art director, decided to sign up to be a Big Brother. Little did he know how much that choice would change his life.
A film that in a roundabout way grew out of that experience, the short documentary Friday Night Blind, would end up winning a Wisconsin Film Festival Golden Badger Award for Krahn and his co-director, Robb Fischer. It will screen as part of the “Real People/Real Places” program on April 14 and 15.
“I was assigned to a little eight-year-old boy, who happened to be living with his aunt Judy,” Krahn explains. Krahn soon learned that Judy was blind. Over the years, he got to know Judy well and they became friends. They even have birthdays close to each other.
One year, he suggested they go out for pizza to celebrate their combined lap around the sun. Judy told him that she couldn’t, due to her obligation to her bowling league. “‘What are you talking about, you have to bowl?’ I said, and laughed, and then thought, I have to check this out,” Krahn says.
Cue the Milwaukee Beer Barrels Blind Bowling League, a Friday night event at the Burnham Bowl in West Allis. “It’s a league that is an eclectic mix of visually impaired and sighted bowlers, and it's just hysterical,” Krahn says.There are no bumpers, the games are competitive and the bowlers laugh all night. “They are talking trash.”
The idea for the documentary percolated for almost a decade. Although his job included
producing commercials, many of them in a documentary style, Krahn didn’t initially think of directing a film himself. He pitched the idea for Friday Night Blind to other directors over the years. “They would just say, ‘That sounds like a great movie; you should do it!’” So eventually, Krahn wrote the story up, created a storyboard, and enlisted his buddy Fischer, an accomplished cinematographer in his own right, to help shoot.
Krahn wanted to showcase the humanity of the three stars of the documentary: Judy, Sandy and Rhonda. All three lead full lives, have more hobbies than most people, and Sandy has even traveled to most parts of the world. Krahn’s respect for them comes through on screen.
And hey, if someone does laugh at them, Judy’s Judy Booty Bowling Ball and its inscribed message speaks volumes: Kiss My Ass.
See our other 2023 Wisconsin Film Fest coverage here.
