GRAPPLING GRACE

A jazz-dancing Iranian-British wrestler opens a healing dojo inside a church in Bristol, armed with a belief that wrestling might just save the world.

He calls it Wrestle For Humanity. He offers classes free for refugees, offenders, people with disabilities and neurodivergence. Working with touch, rhythm, balance and body slams to help heal and play. 

We follow his work with David, who woke from a coma to discover he’d lost his legs. And Greggy, a neurodivergent nine year old who found physical contact unbearable until he discovered Saeed’s classes. 

However, when Saeed’s mother suffers a sudden stroke everything changes. Caring for her strips away his certainty and his teachings are tested, as the spiralling cost of care threatens to leave them homeless. 

Saeed has created a unique type of dance-wrestling therapy for the beautiful misfits of society. Saeed’s revolutionary work has been recognised by an honorary doctorate and an award from King Charles.

Grappling Grace is a film about grief disguised as comedy and therapy disguised as combat. It is about the small acts that keep us human.