TORONTO — Hubert Davis remembers acclaimed Toronto filmmaker Charles Officer calling him with an idea: to direct a documentary about the experiences of Black players in hockey.
“He said, ‘This is really important. I think you should consider it,’” recalls Davis.
“Charles was very dramatic. So when he told me that, there was a lot of weight to it. I was, like, ‘Oh, OK, I think I better do this.’”
The resulting film, 2022’s “Black Ice,” went on to win Davis the People’s Choice Documentary Award at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Before he died in 2023, Officer had been preparing to direct “Youngblood,” a reimagining of the 1986 hockey cult classic. When the film’s producers asked Davis to take the reins, he didn’t hesitate.
Premiering Sept. 6 at the Toronto International Film Festival, “Youngblood” marks Davis’ first foray into fictional storytelling — and a daunting task of carrying forward the vision of a close friend and mentor.
“I think I put a lot of pressure on myself in the making of it and wanting it to get it right,” Davis says.
Officer co-wrote the script, making it the final film he ever worked on.
“You’re doing it for your friend, first and foremost, and so you want to be able to deliver on the expectations of it,” adds Davis, who broke out with the Oscar-nominated 2005 documentary “Hardwood,” about his father, late Harlem Globetrotter Mel Davis.
“I think I’m maybe just coming to terms with that now. You try to block that out while making it. But I was like, ‘Why am I so stressed? Oh right, that’s why.’”
In the original, Rob Lowe stars as Dean Youngblood, a teen sniper who joins a Canadian junior hockey league and quickly learns that to make it in the sport, he must master the art of fighting. Davis says it was Officer’s idea to flip the script, reimagining Youngblood as a Black hockey player — played by Ashton James — who is a skilled scorer but struggles to control his temper.
“The original movie’s about this finesse player who needs to learn how to fight. I think we’re challenging that in today’s climate of masculinity — what that means, where those ideas come from,” says the Vancouver-born filmmaker.
“A lot of the films I grew up on in the ’80s, that was kind of the plot: there’s a training sequence, the guy fights another guy at the end and he’s stronger than him. Our film tries to delve a little deeper than that.”
While co-writing the script, Officer drew on his own past as a teen hockey prospect, having been drafted by the Sudbury Wolves of the Ontario Hockey League. An injury cut his on-ice career short, leading him to the screen industry, where he helmed critically lauded projects including 2008’s “Nurse.Fighter.Boy” and CBC’s 2022 series “The Porter.”
When Davis first moved to Toronto in the early aughts, Officer took him under his wing. He recalls watching Officer’s 2002 short film “Short Hymn, Silent War” at TIFF and feeling inspired.
“He was the first Black filmmaker that I saw just doing his thing. He worked on a super-low budget and he just went out and did it. He was very encouraging in that way,” he says.
Officer helped Davis prepare the funding application for his debut, “Hardwood,” a personal documentary about how his father’s choices rippled through the family.
“Youngblood” is, at heart, a father-son story: Dean clashes with his father Blane, played by Blair Underwood, who instilled in him a code of toughness and truculence. Davis says he drew on his own experience with his late father.
“I lost my dad a couple years ago, and I think about him often. So just working with this father role, you can’t help but to see him a bit in that character. I think what I was trying to do was just find that (Blane) was motivated out of love. He loves his son and he’s trying to protect and teach him, but he’s doing that in a way that’s pretty simple,” he says.
Now a father himself, Davis says the film made him reflect on the sometimes narrow framework he uses when rearing his sons.
“You’re trying your best, but sometimes your own limitations are part of that relationship, which you can only admit later to yourself,” he says.
“I’m super-interested in those male relationships we often think are simple, but are actually quite complex.”
Davis calls “Youngblood” a tribute to Officer. For him, carrying the late filmmaker’s torch means continuing to “reimagine stories in different contexts” while paying it forward to emerging talent. He says that was Officer’s intent in casting James, a relative newcomer who also starred in this year’s Toronto-set rap drama “Boxcutter.”
“I hope this opens doors for James and that, as a younger actor, he starts to open doors for other people. I think that is really Charles’s legacy. I hope we continue to do that. That’s what he would want.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 29, 2025.
Alex Nino Gheciu, The Canadian Press
