Kings of Venice

Amid all the colour and chaos of Venice Beach, (ultra-)competitive paddle tennis players are a band apart. The only thing that can unite them? A hatred of pickleball. In the Los Angeles neighbourhood of Venice Beach, 11 paddle tennis courts are under threat from an encroaching enemy: pickleball. The hugely popular monolith, like some ruthless developer, is taking up increasing space in its expansion, threatening to wipe out a small community playing an exceedingly similar sport. From Scott, the self-described GOAT of paddle tennis, to hot-tempered Italian model Ernesto, these misfits unite to stage a paddlers vs pickleballers tournament. Winner gets $50,000 – and the right to control these courts.

“The Venice Beach paddle tennis world is sort of like a back-alley fistfight,” says one of the oddballs in this quirky, captivating doc. Chronicling a subculture, those who inhabit it and their sporting passions, it’s surely MIFF 2026’s only film to feature a scene where the cops get called on people for yelling at pickleballers. Having enthralled festival-goers at DOC NYC and Slamdance (where it won the Audience Award for Documentary Feature), Kings of Venice is a crowdpleasing delight: a serve of outsized personalities that wouldn’t be out of place in a Christopher Guest comedy.

“Extremely funny … a heartfelt look at community wrapped in a (surprisingly) enrapturing sports documentary.” – Book and Film Globe