Breakaway

Maya Moore was one of the best women’s basketball players in the world. In 2019, at the very peak of her prime, she decided to step away from the game to fight for a man who was wrongly imprisoned. Breakaway is the extraordinary story of how her mission came to be, and how it unfolded in remarkably dramatic and triumphant fashion. The documentary, directed by Rudy Valdez, retraces the arc of two very different lives that came to be intertwined. Moore was a basketball phenomenon from a very young age, becoming a prep star in Georgia before moving on to win back-to-back national titles at the University of Connecticut. Meanwhile, in Missouri, where Moore was born, a man named Jonathan Irons grew up in poverty and as a teenager, was convicted of burglary and assault and sentenced to 50 years in prison. Moore would learn about Irons’ case from mutual family friends, and eventually begin visiting him in prison and helping him pursue avenues for release when evidence was revealed that showed he wasn’t at the scene of the crime, and suggested prosecutorial misconduct in the case. In 2019, after four WNBA championships, two Olympic gold medals, an MVP award, and a scoring title, Moore decided to take a sabbatical from basketball at the age of 29 to devote herself full-time to working for Irons’ release. With exclusive access, the film chronicles that journey through the legal system, and the emotional lows and highs that followed. Breakaway is an intimate, gripping, at times heartbreaking portrait of the deficiencies of the American criminal justice system, and an ultimately inspiring tale of Moore’s dedication to the cause and the relationship that changed her life forever.