Basketball Heaven follows filmmaker Resita Cox as she journeys through time to her hometown, Kinston, NC: the largest producer of NBA talent in the world. Basketball Heaven is a poetic community portrait of the unsung heroes and rich history of this small, Southern Black town.
SYNOPSIS
Basketball Heaven follows director Resita Cox as she returns to her hometown, Kinston, NC, an unlikely basketball mecca where Friday night games sell out and dreams take flight from community courts. But unlike traditional sports films, this is not a story about star athletes. This is a story about the people who make them: teachers, coaches, elders, and neighbors who raise and love beyond what they see. Through the lens of two central figures, Ms. Felicia Solomon, an educator and spiritual mother to generations, and Coach Jesse Miller, a community coach and father figure, the film explores how Black resilience, care, and tradition are passed down. Kinston itself becomes a character, shaped by segregation, a forgotten floodplain, and systemic disinvestment, yet still pulsating with culture, memory, and pride.
Alongside beloved mentors like Ms. Solomon and Coach Jesse, we meet Coach Tish Dixon, head girls’ basketball coach at Rochelle Middle School and a former classmate of Resita. A decorated athlete whose pro career was cut short by injury, Coach Tish now nurtures the next generation both on and off the court. With intimate access and lyrical narration, Resita confronts her own scarred childhood and finds healing in the community that helped her survive. At its heart, Basketball Heaven asks: What does it take to pour into others when the world refuses to pour into you?
Director Statement
I left my hometown of Kinston, North Carolina, at 18, never intending to return. Despite being one of the poorest cities in the state, Kinston is the world’s greatest per-capita producer of NBA talent—a place of beauty and heartbreak, triumph and loss. My story mirrors that duality: I’m an Emmy Award–winning filmmaker raised in deep poverty by parents battling addiction in a town scarred by trauma but defined by impossible wins. As Audre Lorde wrote, “we were never meant to survive.”
What I lacked at home, I found in my community—friends, teachers, coaches, and neighbors who held me up. Chief among them was Ms. Felicia Solomon, my first Black teacher, whose unofficial adoption of me in fifth grade changed the course of my life. Basketball Heaven is an ode to her, and to Kinston’s enduring spirit—a call back to our communal roots of survival and care.
Fifteen years after leaving, Spirit called me home. I now spend my summers in Eastern North Carolina running a youth film camp, nurturing the next generation of storytellers.
Basketball Heaven blends magical realism and vérité to create a poetic community portrait of Kinston—its basketball rhythm, its Southern textures, and its deep history. As a Kinston native and former editor of the Viking Press, I bring an insider’s perspective that transcends tropes of violence and poverty, revealing instead a community of resilience, love, and spiritual depth.
Supporter Statement
Resita has a track record of telling stories of Southern Black communities with empathy, artistry, joy, and power. We first supported her in 2023, when she was awarded a Project:Hatched grant to support post-production and impact campaign work for her film Freedom Hill. The film tells the story of Princeville, North Carolina—the first town chartered by freed Black people in America—and the threat of its erasure. The film, along with her impact campaign work launching a youth filmmaking camp and educating the public about media and the legacy of the town, sparked important conversations around environmental racism and how film itself can serve as a powerful tool in capturing, honoring, and highlighting the stories of everyday people.
More recently, Resita was selected to participate in our 2025 (Egg)celerator Lab program, which supports first- and second-time directors from around the world through a grant for the production of their feature-length film in addition to tailored and individual mentorship from our senior creative team. With her debut feature film, Resita is aiming to create a poetic community portrait of the Kinston, NC that despite systemic failings, have reigned supreme in basketball. It has been incredible to witness the progress she has made with this deeply personal film over the last year.
We are honored to have been a part of Resita’s journey and are excited about her future as a filmmaker, community organizer, and advocate. - Kiyoko McCrae, Program Director, Chicken & Egg Films
ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)
Director Resita Cox
Resita Cox is an Emmy Award–winning documentary director and producer whose films poetically portray the resilience and spirit of Black Southern communities. Rooted in relationship-based storytelling, her work reimagines equitable filmmaking by centering people and place.
A North Carolina native and graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Resita began her career as a TV news reporter before pursuing her MFA in Documentary Film at Northwestern University. She was awarded a 2023 Regional Emmy for directing WTTW’s Firsthand: Life After Prison and is the director/producer of Freedom Hill, an award-winning documentary on environmental racism in the first town chartered by Black people in the U.S.
Resita was named a 2022 Esteemed Artist by the City of Chicago, a 2021 Hulu/Kartemquin Accelerator Fellow, and one of Elevate’s 2022 Climate Changemakers. Her producing credits include Bike Vessel, which premiered at the 2023 Chicago International Film Festival. Her films have screened at Full Frame, BlackStar, Slamdance, Pan African, and DC Environmental Film Festivals, among others.
She is currently developing Basketball Heaven, a Sundance-funded feature and love letter to her hometown of Kinston, NC, which won the 2023 South Pitch Documentary Award with the New Orleans Film Society. Her work has been supported by Chicken & Egg Pictures, PBS, Perspective Fund, South Arts, and Points North Institute.
Beyond filmmaking, Resita leads a youth media camp in eastern North Carolina and serves as Narrative Director at FREEDOM ORG, a community development corporation fostering growth and sustainable change.
Producer Crystal Isaac
Crystal Isaac is an Emmy Award–nominated producer whose work spans documentary film and television, focused on stories that illuminate race, gender, class, and justice in America.
Most recently, she is the Lead Producer of Basketball Heaven, an ITVS-funded feature documentary that captures the resilience of a Southern Black community confronting systemic inequities. Her recent credits include Dallas, 2019 (PBS, 2025), a five-part documentary series examining the political and social fabric of Dallas, and She Was First (PBS South Florida, 2026), a documentary series celebrating groundbreaking women who transformed culture and history. She also produced Down in the Valley (STARZ, 2024), a celebration of the Black Southern experience nominated for a 2025 GLAAD Media Award.
Crystal has produced content for HBO, CNN, BET, PBS, and Paramount+, including CNN’s United Shades of America with W. Kamau Bell, for which she received a 2023 Emmy nomination. She is a 2025–2026 Sundance Documentary Producing Fellow, selected for her work on Basketball Heaven.
Before producing, Crystal spent more than a decade in journalism, including at ABC News, where she covered national stories on race and inequality. Her work bridges journalism and cinematic storytelling, championing community-centered narratives that affirm Black life and resilience.
Outside of production, she serves on her local community board and teaches documentary producing workshops for emerging filmmakers in North Carolina and New York.
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