‘Lunch Box’: From NFL star to schoolyard reject: Romeo Okwara’s second act
Former NFL star Romeo Okwara and filmmaker Sean Billings-Almendarez are trading professional football for middle-school mayhem in Lunch Box, a scrappy sports comedy proving that sometimes the biggest victories come with a side of Cheetos.
Forget the Super Bowl. Forget multimillion-dollar contracts, screaming stadiums, and championship rings. Sometimes the most important sporting event of your life happens during lunch break, and the grand prize is a box of junk food.
That’s the deliciously ridiculous premise behind Lunch Box, the debut short film from longtime friends Sean Billings-Almendarez and Romeo Okwara, the former NFL player whose eight-season professional football career has now given way to a very different kind of competition.
Their opponents? Middle-school social hierarchies, childhood insecurity, and the terrifying business of trying to fit in.
Their secret weapon? A friendship that has survived long enough to become a movie.
And judging by the film’s Audience Award victory at the NYU Sports Film Festival, audiences are eating it up.
The NFL star, the filmmaker, and the art of being a reject
Hollywood loves an underdog. But Lunch Box takes the familiar sports-movie formula and shrinks it to the gloriously absurd dimensions of a school cafeteria.
The film follows the Rejects, a ragtag collection of middle-school outsiders competing against the seemingly unbeatable All-Stars. Their battleground shifts from the football field to the basketball court, but the real competition is about something considerably more universal: belonging.
For Okwara and Billings-Almendarez, the material is personal.
Both arrived in Charlotte as middle-school newcomers, navigating unfamiliar friendships and the brutal social politics of adolescence. Sports became their passport into a community.
Decades later, they’re revisiting those experiences with a camera, a cast of young actors, and a surprisingly sophisticated understanding of what childhood competition actually means.
Okwara brings more than his NFL experience to the production. An accomplished photographer who completed an MFA at Cranbrook Academy, he approaches filmmaking with an artist’s eye and an athlete’s understanding of teamwork.
Billings-Almendarez, meanwhile, draws on years of producing storytelling for brands and media companies, bringing his writing and performance instincts to their collaboration.
Together, they’ve created a film that borrows the visual swagger of classic sports movies without forgetting that its heroes are children whose biggest problem might be getting picked last.
Film Daily interviews Sean Billings-Almendarez and Romeo Okwara
We caught up with the filmmaking duo to discuss childhood rejection, professional football, creative partnerships, Fujifilm’s GFX Eterna 55, and why a bag of spicy Cheetos might be the most relatable sporting trophy in cinema.
Every friendship has an origin story
Film Daily: Lunch Box grew out of your experiences arriving in Charlotte and feeling like the new kids. What memories from that period became the emotional starting point for the film?
Sean and Romeo: We both moved to Charlotte in middle school, a difficult time to enter an established social environment. Sports and playing outside after lunch helped us make friends and find people we could lean on during those awkward, vulnerable years.
Film Daily: You’ve described friendship as a lifeline when confidence was thin and the rules of the schoolyard seemed stacked against you. How did your own friendship influence the relationship between the Rejects?
Sean and Romeo: The heart of the film comes from our friendship. We have very different family backgrounds, cultures, and life experiences, but shared interests and compassion have kept us close. We wanted to celebrate friendships through every season of life, particularly during those transitional years.
Film Daily: Why did middle school feel like the right setting for exploring belonging, friendship and resilience?
Sean and Romeo: Nobody really knows who they are in middle school. Friendships can form simply because you share a math class or a lunch table. There’s a fascinating combination of self-preservation and lingering innocence that made it the right emotional setting.
Film Daily: The lunch box itself contains junk food, but it becomes this enormously important trophy. Where did that idea come from?
Sean and Romeo: Certain snacks weren’t available in the school cafeteria. You had to bring them from outside, which made fruit snacks, chewing gum, and spicy Cheetos valuable commodities. They became the perfect trophies for our epic schoolyard battles.
Film Daily: Were the All-Stars and Rejects inspired by actual people and social groups you remember from school?
Sean and Romeo: Absolutely. Everyone can feel like an All-Star or a Reject at different moments. We wanted to capture how the same children competing fiercely at recess could be laughing together in science class. Those relationships are more complicated than simple rivalries.
Winning isn’t everything. Especially when the prize is lunch.
Film Daily: You call the film a sports comedy, but underneath the competition there’s a story about finding your people. How did you balance the comedy with that emotional core?
Sean and Romeo: Growing up is hard, and middle school can be particularly difficult. Humor helps us deal with those experiences. Ultimately, it’s a coming-of-age story about finding friendship among a motley crew and celebrating the differences between us.
Film Daily: What did you want audiences to understand about the “small victories that don’t always look like winning”?
Sean and Romeo: Not everybody wins the championship. But the pursuit of something alongside people you care about can be just as meaningful. Those smaller victories can stay with you for years.
Film Daily: Underdog sports stories usually build toward a huge championship. Lunch Box deliberately makes the stakes incredibly small — junk food and schoolyard glory — while treating them as enormous. Why was that scale important?
Sean and Romeo: Who doesn’t love junk food?
It’s a wonderfully economical answer, and perhaps the film’s entire philosophy in four words.
Two directors, one friendship, zero room for egos
Film Daily: This is your first film as directors. What finally made Lunch Box the project that convinced you to step behind the camera together?
Sean and Romeo: We’d collaborated on smaller projects and developed another short-film concept, but it wasn’t quite ready. When Lunch Box came along, everything clicked. We could visualize it immediately and felt confident we could make it happen.
Film Daily: You also wrote the screenplay together. What did your writing process look like when the material was rooted in memories you both shared?
Sean: I have more of a writing background, so the initial idea grew from conversations we’d already had. Romeo sent back ideas, we discussed what needed to be included, and the screenplay developed quickly.
Romeo: Sean has a brilliant ability to turn our shared images and memories into dialogue. We met at least weekly to work through the material. The process was playful and fun.
Film Daily: How did you divide directing responsibilities on set, and where did your individual creative strengths differ?
Sean: Romeo’s photography background gave him a strong vision for the film’s appearance. I concentrated more on performances. After a take, if Romeo was happy with the image and I was happy with the acting, we knew we could move forward. That trust helped us accomplish so much in two days.
Romeo: Our collaboration goes back to playing football together in high school. Sean focused on performances while I worked on the visuals with cinematographer Charles Kennedy Jr. We trusted each other to handle our respective responsibilities.
What eight NFL seasons teach you about making movies
Film Daily: Romeo, professional football and filmmaking appear to be radically different worlds. What did eight seasons in the NFL teach you that unexpectedly translated to directing?
Romeo: Both worlds depend on collaboration. You need a team working toward a shared goal, and you must trust everyone to do their job. Professional sports taught me that you cannot accomplish something meaningful alone.
Film Daily: Romeo, you’ve also developed a career as a photographer and completed an MFA at Cranbrook Academy. How did your photographic eye shape the visual language of Lunch Box?
Romeo: An image is often what first excites me about a script. We discussed visual references from sports films of the 1990s and early 2000s, as well as locations and camera movement. Charles Kennedy Jr. photographed the film beautifully.
Film Daily: Sean, you’ve spent years producing storytelling for brands and media companies. What did directing a narrative film demand from you that producing commercial and editorial work didn’t?
Sean: The biggest adjustment was being on set. Instead of concentrating on logistics, I had to direct my attention toward the creative work and performances. Our production team made that possible by handling the practical demands.
Film Daily: What conversations did you have with cinematographer Charles Kennedy Jr. about making the schoolyard competition feel genuinely cinematic?
Sean and Romeo: Charles understood our vision immediately. He connected with the material through his own experiences and athletic background. He moved alongside the children on the field and court, capturing the action in a way that felt authentic.
Never work with children? These directors disagree.
Film Daily: You’re directing a large ensemble of young performers. How did you create an environment where their performances could feel like real kids interacting rather than adults’ memories of childhood?
Sean and Romeo: We filmed at Community House Middle School, which Romeo attended. That immediately grounded the experience in reality. As filming progressed, the cast became a genuine group. Whenever we called cut on the football field, the children would start playing for real. Some of those spontaneous moments made it into the movie.
Film Daily: How important was casting in establishing the difference between the apparently unstoppable All-Stars and the scrappy Rejects?
Sean and Romeo: Casting director Alicia Fusting of C&J Casting introduced us to an extraordinary group of young performers. The decisions were difficult, but the actors we chose brought the characters to life exactly as we’d hoped.
Film Daily: The story moves from football outside to basketball in the gym after a rainstorm. What did changing the arena allow you to do dramatically and visually?
Sean and Romeo: It kept the audience guessing. The Rejects had nearly succeeded on the football field, but moving indoors changed the dynamic. It also reinforced how children can turn almost anything into a competition. Even in a computer lab, they’d have found something to compete over.
Shooting childhood nostalgia with tomorrow’s camera
Film Daily: Fujifilm partnered with you on the production. How did that relationship develop, and what did their involvement make possible creatively?
Sean and Romeo: We already had a relationship with Fujifilm and learned about the upcoming GFX Eterna 55. We’d originally planned to shoot on film, but the new camera offered an opportunity to create the nostalgic aesthetic we wanted while exploring something new. Fujifilm’s support allowed us to bring the project to life in ways we hadn’t expected.
Film Daily: You returned to Charlotte to tell a story rooted in your experiences there. What was it like transforming a place connected to your childhood into a film set?
Sean and Romeo: Surreal. Returning to where everything began was exciting, especially discovering that some of the same teachers were still there.
Film Daily: How much did shooting within the Charlotte school community contribute to the authenticity you wanted?
Sean and Romeo: Returning to our hometown was important to both of us. It gave the film a personal quality that we couldn’t have recreated somewhere else.
From the schoolyard to the festival circuit
Film Daily: Lunch Box won the Audience Award at the NYU Sports Film Festival. What did that audience response tell you about whether this very personal story could connect with people who didn’t share your childhood?
Sean and Romeo: The response has been tremendous. People of different ages have found something personal in the story. That’s exactly what we hoped would happen.
Film Daily: The film has also been selected by HollyShorts, the Charlotte Film Festival and the Wyoming Film Festival. What have you learned from watching the film with different festival audiences?
Sean and Romeo: Every audience reacts differently. Watching those responses has been exciting, and we’re looking forward to sharing the film with more people.
Film Daily: You describe belonging as something that can stay with somebody for a lifetime. Looking back as adults, what did finding that friendship change for each of you?
Sean and Romeo: Being newcomers forced us to learn how to make friends in unfamiliar and sometimes intimidating environments. Those skills have continued to help us throughout our personal lives and careers.
Film Daily: Now that you’ve made your first film together, what kind of storytellers do you want Sean Billings-Almendarez and Romeo Okwara to become?
Sean and Romeo: We’re fascinated by people who are deeply immersed in their worlds, particularly within cultures and communities that aren’t widely understood. Those are the stories we want to explore in the years ahead.
Hollywood could learn a thing or two from the Rejects
There’s something refreshingly unpretentious about two grown men, one of whom spent eight seasons playing professional football, deciding that a middle-school battle over snacks deserves the cinematic treatment.
Yet that’s precisely what makes Lunch Box interesting.
Rather than using sport to glorify exceptional individuals, Okwara and Billings-Almendarez focus on the children who aren’t naturally exceptional. The ones who struggle to make friends. The ones who don’t always get picked. The ones who keep turning up anyway.
It’s a perspective that gives the familiar underdog formula a little more humanity.
The film’s production story is equally revealing. Two longtime friends return to the school where one of them studied, recruit a young ensemble, shoot over two days, and emerge with an award-winning short supported by a major camera manufacturer.
For Okwara, the transition from NFL athlete to filmmaker also challenges the tired assumption that professional sports and serious artistic ambition belong in separate universes.
His photography background, postgraduate art education, and emerging directing career suggest a creative identity considerably broader than his former profession.
And for Billings-Almendarez, Lunch Box represents the move from producing other people’s stories to telling one that is unmistakably his own.
Conclusion: The real trophy was never in the lunch box
The beauty of Lunch Box is that its filmmakers understand something many sports movies overlook: childhood victories aren’t necessarily measured by the scoreboard.
Sometimes winning means finding somebody willing to sit beside you at lunch.
Sometimes it means discovering that the kid who destroyed you at football is actually pretty funny in science class.
And sometimes it means maintaining a friendship long enough to return to your old school and make a movie about the whole ridiculous experience.
With an NYU Sports Film Festival Audience Award and selections at HollyShorts, the Charlotte Film Festival, and the Wyoming Film Festival, Okwara and Billings-Almendarez have already demonstrated that their deeply personal story resonates beyond Charlotte.
As for the Rejects?
They may never make it to the NFL.
But they’ve already made it to the movies.
