At the Vashon Island Film Festival, Racewalkers proved itself a sports comedy that embraces the oddities of its world without losing sight of its heart. The film, written, directed, produced, and performed by longtime friends and collaborators Kevin Claydon and Phil Moniz takes on the quirky world of competitive race walking – an Olympic sport that some people may have seen but even fewer understand – and turns it into a heartfelt underdog story that’s as funny as it is unexpectedly moving.

From the outset, the filmmakers made it clear this wasn’t going to be a movie that mocked its subject. “We wanted there to be a lot of heart in this movie,” Claydon explained during the post-screening Q&A. “Punching down just kind of takes away from that spirit… If we’re just making fun of the subject material…well, our characters are better than that.” That philosophy shows. While the premise invites easy laughs, Racewalkers finds its comedy in character, circumstance, and the strange beauty of a sport that requires both grit and a sense of humor.

The road to making Racewalkers was anything but easy. Just three months after financing was put together, cameras rolled, and both leads were in “every second” of the film. “It’s pretty stupid for us to direct it while also starring in it,” Claydon admitted with a grin, “but we’re like, let’s do it anyway.” 

And then there was the broken toe. Just two days before filming the pivotal race-walking scenes, Claydon injured himself at the gym—despite Moniz’s repeated pleas to take it easy before the shoot. “He’s an actor, he didn’t want to look gross in the movie,” Moniz joked. “And he dropped a weight on his foot and broke his toe. We still shot all of the race-walking in like five days.”

They shot the film in Toronto over a 19 day period. To prepare, they rehearsed critical scenes for performance and blocking well before filming – something they could only manage because they were also the actors – actors they didn’t need to pay, they joked.

“We’re shooting at the end of September beginning around October, and I was like this is gonna be great because these guys are going to be wearing these tiny shorts – and I get to wear tracksuits,” Moniz recalled. “And for whatever reason, it was like 30 degrees Celsius. I just feel like they were fine, and I was just like sweating bullets.” 

Of course, there was the small matter of learning how to actually race walk. In a move that feels appropriately indie, Claydon cold-emailed Canada’s top race walking coach, who agreed to train him. The preparation was intense: “I was race walking every morning, and people were heckling me,” Claydon recalled. “It’s hard on your body when you’ve never done it.” The week devoted to filming the race sequences left the cast, many of whom were hockey players doubling as race walkers, hobbling around set in pain. But the results speak for themselves—the racing scenes feel authentic, kinetic, and oddly thrilling.

Racewalkers’ humor and heart owe a lot to the classic sports comedies of the ’90s that the filmmakers grew up loving. “We grew up on movies like Major League and Cool Runnings, which is an amazing movie, and Happy Gilmore – the first Happy Gilmore” Claydon humorously emphasized. “Movies like Little Giants – those movies were big for us. Yeah, there’s a lot of like that kind of vibe in this movie, I think.”

They also cited inspiration from some early 2000s comedies, particularly highlighting the influence of Judd Apatow’s brand of humor. “What he did in the early 2000s, I think, was pretty important to comedy,” Claydon said. This mix of quirky sports underdog stories and heartfelt laughs helped shape the tone and rhythm of Racewalkers—from the story beats to the energetic opening montage, which they noted was inspired by the iconic soundtrack of Days of Thunder.

The editing process brought its own challenges. “It’s awful watching yourself for hours,” Moniz laughed, “but luckily we had a couple of really good editors we trusted.” The filmmakers relied on their collaborators to bring objectivity, especially when their own insecurities as actors threatened to creep in.

The Vashon crowd seemed charmed by not just the film but the filmmakers themselves. Moniz and Claydon gushed about their experience on the island – great coffee, great pizza, walks through the woods, and even stumbling upon horses near a lodge they described as “the most delightful wedding venue ever seen.” The festival, they said, was “like a little vacation… really relaxing and amazing.”

In an era when sports comedies often follow the same predictable beats, Racewalkers feels refreshingly personal. The filmmakers resisted the temptation to add phony betrayals or contrived rivalries. Instead, they focused on loyalty, friendship, and the sheer weird joy of doing something difficult simply because you love it. “We just wanted to make sure the story is compulsive and interesting,” Claydon said. “You need to know what happens next all the time.”

By the time the credits rolled, the Vashon audience – and the festival jurors – were all in, cheering through every step, hip swivel, and determined stride. With the perfect mix of heart and razor-sharp comedy, Racewalkers crossed the finish line a lovable winner.