Netflix releases trailer of documentary about Judit Polgár

Netflix has released the first trailer for its documentary about the life of Hungarian chess player Judit Polgár, titled Queen of Chess. The trailer features archival footage of the chess player's childhood matches, with Polgár herself also speaking on several occasions. "You have the feeling that he wants to eat you up alive," she says in the trailer about Garry Kasparov, with whom she played one of the most important matches of her career – if not the most important one.

The film will be screened at the Sundance Film Festival on January 27 and was directed by Rory Kennedy, who was previously nominated for an Oscar for her documentary Last Days in Vietnam. Queen of Chess will be available on Netflix starting February 6. The 93-minute film features archival footage, some of which has never been seen by the public before.

"It is a great honor for me that Queen of Chess, an honest and thought-provoking documentary about my story has been included in the program of the film festival," Judit Polgár wrote on her Facebook page last December in response to the news.

Born in 1976, Polgár became an international grandmaster at the age of fifteen, by which time she was already a two-time Olympic gold medallist in the team competition, after Hungary beat the previously unbeatable Soviet Union in 1988 and 1990. Judit's teammates were her two sisters, Zsuzsa and Zsófia, and Ildikó Mádl. László Polgár raised his children in accordance with his own educational methods, which were considered unique in the socialist system and even led to him being reported several times. His daughters were home-schooled, did not attend school, but studied languages and, of course, played chess constantly, always training and practising. When the authorities allowed it, they traveled to tournaments to show off their skills.

Judit Polgár's big dream was to one day defeat Garry Kasparov and prove that women can play chess as well as men. She almost achieved this in 1994, at the Linares super tournament remembered for the touch-move controversy. In a previous interview with Telex, Polgár recalled this story as well.