GRAPPLING GRACE
A WRESTLE FOR HUMANITY MEDIA & SPINOZA FILMS PRODUCTION
Support kindness
Your support for Grappling Grace powers Wrestle for Humanity’s award-winning Body-Mind-Community framework. Whether helping someone strive toward an Olympic dream or supporting someone to bounce back from adversity, we ground our work by embracing kindness.
GRAPPLING GRACE is an uplifting short film documentary about Coach Saeed Esmaeli's journey to creating a unique type of therapy centering around the connection between body, mind and community.
Through his social movement Wrestle for Humanity, Saeed's groundbreaking Wrestle for any-Body™ program and his work with offenders, refugees and neurodivergent children has been recognised by an honorary doctorate and an award from King Charles. However, when his mother suffers a sudden stroke everything changes. Caring for her strips away his certainty as the spiralling cost of care threatens to leave them homeless.
Watch the trailer
A jazz-dancing Iranian-British wrestler opens a healing dojo inside a church, armed with a belief that wrestling and kindness will save the world.
Directed by Alex Kiehl and Misha Novak
2026
GRAPPLING GRACE is about grief disguised as comedy and therapy disguised as combat. An uplifting short film about healing, creativity and the small acts that keep us human. The original score by Ruben Fox, a leading voice in the UK and US jazz scene, was recorded live to picture with an eight-piece band.
Awards and Recognitions
Grappling Grace continues to gain international recognition across Europe, Asia and North America, including Oscar® and BAFTA-qualifying festivals, cultural institutions, and platforms focused on social impact, health, wellbeing, and embodied practice.
Winner Best Documentary
-
Winner Best Documentary - Paris Bridge of Peace Festival
-
Winner Best Documentary - Kiez Berlin FF
-
Winner Best Documentary - London Film Club
-
Winner Best Health and Medicine Film - Sicilian Film Awards, Madonie Film Festival 2026
-
Winner Best Story - Experimental Film and Music Video Festival
-
Winner Southwest Award - Bristol Documentary Film Festival
Featured Selection
-
Featured Selection - VICE Sports Shorts Night, New York, USA
Official Selection
-
Official Selection - San Jose International Short Film Festival (Oscar®-qualifying)
-
Official Selection - Bali International Film Festival (Oscar®-qualifying)
-
Official Selection - Brooklyn Film Festival 2026
-
Official Selection - Sadler's Wells Dance Digital 2026
-
Official Selection - LightReel Film Festival
-
Official Selection - Barcelona Indie Film Festival
-
Official Selection - II MYTH Social Impact Film Award