AllMovie

Chinlone is a sport that's popular in Myanmar, the nation once known as Burma. Chinlone is played with a ball made of woven straw as a circle of six participants try to keep the ball in the air using their feet and their knees, all without the use of their hands; some have described it as resembling a mixture of dance, tai chi and hackey sack. While Chinlone is one of the national pastimes in Myanmar, it's all but unknown in North America, but Greg Hamilton, a native of Toronto, learned about the game and now not only plays on a regular basis in Canada but even travels to Myanmar several times a year to take place in competitions with the nation's top players. Hamilton shares his fascination with a sport best known on the other side of the globe in Mystic Ball, a documentary he wrote and directed which deals with his fascination with the game and the many ways in which it differs from popular North American sports. Mystic Ball was Hamilton's first feature film.