Each athlete in Eat/Sleep/Cheer/Repeat directed by Tanya Doyle has their own story and is placed, movingly, at the threshold between adolescence and adulthood
Cheerleading, or cheer as its practitioners have it, is a fast-growing sport in Ireland. Last year, at Worlds – the diminutive name for the World Championships – Ireland’s Coed Elite and Junior Hip Hop squads made it to the finals and finished in 10th and eighth places, respectively. In 2022 Team Ireland placed ninth.
“We followed loads of characters because we had no idea how the film would evolve,” Doyle says. “We just had to keep up with them. Taylor is so dry. She lives the life. She was travelling up from Mayo three times a week, every week. There were a lot of killer decisions in the edit. We started filming Olivia when she was 11, and now she’s 17. There’s a guy called Shane who is a phenomenal tumbler. But we just didn’t have room for all the stories and people we met.
“The evolution of the sport from being a majorette and what they do now is incredible,” the documentary maker says. “A lot of the girls on the Irish national team were gymnasts. They have all these skills. But it isn’t just team gymnastics, because gymnastics is very precise but a solitary sport. You perform on your own. With cheer, everybody is in it together. And that’s what attracts a lot of the people you see in the film.”They are travelling all over the country, training three times a week.
'Hilton undersells himself a lot, but he is always there for the kids. He’s willing it for them,' says Doyle. Photograph: Marmalade Films