5 Years After Emailing Keanu Reeves, Mitchell-Avila Beats Him At Chess

The documentary follows Mitchell-Avila, a young filmmaker and chess player from New Mexico, as she travels through the U.S., Mexico, and France to meet women whose lives have been shaped by the game. Using chess as a metaphor, the film explores identity, mentorship, family, sacrifice, and the difficult decisions involved in finding one’s place in the world.

Directed by Emmy- and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Zach Zamboni, Madwoman’s Game grew from a planned short film about Mitchell-Avila’s childhood chess club into a six-year coming-of-age story. The documentary features WGM Jennifer Shahade, WFM Alexandra Botez, IM Rusudan Goletiani, Rochelle Ballantyne, and WIM Sabrina Chevannes. The focus of the documentary, however, extends beyond ratings, titles, and tournament achievements.

In April, Variety revealed how Keanu Reeves joined the project as an executive producer in 2021, after Mitchell-Avila, then a 16-year-old with no Hollywood connections, contacted his representatives. He went on to mentor her throughout the five-year production.

At Thursday’s premiere, the two met for the first time in person. The Matrix star, who revealed he had not played over the board for a year, seemed to enjoy himself on stage, entertaining the packed audience with theatrical despair as the games turned against him. 

Keanu Reeves entertained the audience while playing chess on stage. Photo: Chicano Hollywood Film Festival.

“I am a terrible chess player,” he announced, before joking to Mitchell-Avila: “You’re just so terrible!” and “I hate chess!” he added. “I just hate chess! Did I say that? I just hate chess!”

I am a terrible chess player!
—Keanu Reeves

The lighthearted matches preceded a panel with Mitchell-Avila, Reeves, Director Zach Zamboni, and Executive Producer Carla Berkowitz, followed by the premiere screening at The Union on Garey. The film had its world premiere at the Miami Film Festival in April.

Bianca Mitchell-Avila on the red carpet ahead of her documentary Madwoman’s Game. Photo: Chess.com.

Mitchell-Avila learned chess from her father when she was around five and played competitively for approximately five years through Learner’s Chess Academy in New Mexico.

The title Madwoman’s Game came from her grandmother, who encouraged her to continue playing in an environment where relatively few people around her were involved in chess.

“My grandma used to love that I played chess,” Mitchell-Avila told Chess.com’s FM Mike Klein. “There was a part of her that was like, ‘Women have got to play this game. The queen is the most powerful piece on the board.'”

“I think it was always just kind of teaching me that I have a place in this game.”

Mitchell-Avila gradually stopped playing after entering middle school, when she felt increasingly pushed out by boys in the chess community. As with millions of others, Netflix’s hit series The Queen’s Gambit renewed her interest in the game.

“I was like, ‘Wait, I forgot how much I love this game.’ I used to play it all the time,” she said.

I was like, ‘Wait, I forgot how much I love this game.’ I used to play it all the time.
—Bianca Mitchell-Avila

By then, filmmaking had already emerged as her career path and, having worked in the industry since she was 13 by making short films, she attended a media arts school and created a production company.

When productions shut down during the pandemic, her father suggested making something of their own. The initial plan was to make a short documentary about Learner’s Chess Academy, but Mitchell-Avila kept returning to one childhood memory.

Her club had taken seven players—five boys and two girls—to a tournament where only five could represent the team. Mitchell-Avila said the two girls were removed and had to play for other schools.

“I was like, ‘I can’t be the only girl experiencing this,’” she said.

The concept expanded further when, as a 15-year-old, she was featured in a New York Times story about The Queen’s Gambit’s effect on girls’ interest in chess. Some of the comments beneath the story dismissed their enthusiasm as a passing fad. Others bragged they could defeat the girls blindfolded.

“We were just young girls,” Mitchell-Avila said. “We weren’t even adult women, and they’re saying these things. Why is that?”

Bianca Mitchell-Avila was just 15 when she started working on her documentary Madwoman’s Game. Image: UltraBoom Media.

The reactions helped convince her that the film should focus on the experiences of women in chess, although Mitchell-Avila did not want to frame the documentary as a battle between men and women. “I don’t want to do this documentary where it’s bashing people or making it like one side is better than the other,” she said.

“I wanted to create something that was empowering, something that young girls could watch and see themselves in these women and be like, ‘Yes, I can do this too. Anything is possible.’”

I wanted to create something that was empowering, something that young girls could watch and see themselves in these women and be like, ‘Yes, I can do this too. Anything is possible.’
—Bianca Mitchell-Avila

Mitchell-Avila wanted to highlight relatable women who had experienced challenges and used chess to navigate or improve their lives. One of them is Rochelle Ballantyne, who appeared in the acclaimed 2012 documentary Brooklyn Castle. 

Years later, Mitchell-Avila found herself playing Ballantyne in Washington Square Park in New York and interviewing her for a documentary of her own. “I saw Rochelle on the screen when I was maybe five or six years old and was like, ‘I want to be her. She’s so inspiring,’” she said.

Bianca Mitchell-Avila with Rochelle Ballantyne in Madwoman’s Game in Washington Square Park, NY. Image: UltraBoom Media.

“Then getting to interview her as an adult and seeing how much she’s grown—and how chess has helped her get to where she has gotten—it was crazy.”

Mentorship also became one of the documentary’s central themes. Mitchell-Avila said she had struggled as a younger girl to find role models who looked like her and were pursuing the careers she imagined for herself.

Many of the women she interviewed ultimately became friends and mentors. “These chess players, it wasn’t just a one-time interview or meeting them one time and then never talking to them again,” Mitchell-Avila told Chess.com in an interview on the red carpet.

“These people became very much like family. I still talk to a lot of these women today, and I ask them about my life.”

Chess provided an immediate shared language, even when Mitchell-Avila had only just met the person sitting across from her.

“We’re both chess players. We connect on that level, and I think chess really just brought us together,” she said.

“I can trust you with telling these stories and these hard things that I’ve experienced because I feel like I already know you.”

The communities she visited had noticeably different characters. At Blitz Society in Paris, Mitchell-Avila found a quiet, close-knit atmosphere in which everyone appeared absorbed in their games. Washington Square Park in New York was filled with banter and energy.

Mitchell-Avila’s biggest leap came when she imagined the documentary ending with a final chess game against Keanu Reeves.

“Having this epic chess battle against John Wick would be kind of crazy,” she told Klein a couple of weeks before her dream came true.

She asked her father whether contacting one of Hollywood’s biggest stars was too unrealistic. He encouraged her to try, and the pair rewrote the email several times while searching for a way to reach Reeves’ representatives.

“One worked, and I remember it was such an insane moment, realizing it was all kind of happening,” she said.

I remember it was such an insane moment, realizing it was all kind of happening.
—Bianca Mitchell-Avila on getting Keanu Reeves on board

“The worst that could happen is I get a no. That was something my dad always taught me: always ask. The worst you’re going to get is no. If you don’t ask, you already got a no.”

On the red carpet, Reeves was asked what persuaded him to work with a teenage filmmaker he had never met. “The power of this young person’s words,” he said, recalling her message.

“The power of this young person’s words. ‘Hello Mr. Reeves, I am interested in doing this. I have this idea. I play chess. Do you play chess? I want to explore my own questions about who I am, and how I am, the lessons I have learned through this game,'” the Hollywood star said.

“I could relate to that. So I guess that was kind of the… chess was the hook.”

Mitchell-Avila quickly offered a less philosophical explanation. “I just wanted to play chess with you!” she responded.

I just wanted to play chess with you!
—Bianca Mitchell-Avila to Keanu Reeves

Reeves joined the project in 2021. Although he does not appear in the finished documentary, his role became more significant than planned, Mitchell-Avila said.

“When I talk to him, I can tell that he’s actually hearing me and hearing my thoughts,” she said. During periods when she questioned whether the project was taking too long or whether she should focus on something else, Reeves encouraged her to continue.

“He would always be there and be like, ‘Trust the process. Trust your team. It’s going to happen. Your vision is going to come through,’” she said. “It was really nice to hear as a young person coming into this industry.”

Speaking to Klein before her games against Reeves, she said she expected Reeves to be a strong opponent.

“I know he reads a lot of chess books, and I’m kind of scared,” she said. “I know he definitely is a pretty good chess player.”

Bianca Mitchell-Avila in Madwoman’s Game. Image: UltraBoom Media.

Her advice to other young people considering a similarly unlikely project remains the same as when she decided to email one of Hollywood’s biggest stars.

“You get one life, one chance. It’s yours to take,” she told Klein.

“You’ve just got to take that chance and go in. If that’s chess, if that’s something else—whatever you are passionate about, you might as well live your life doing something you’re passionate about.”