There is no sport that mirrors the society like football does. Called the ‘Beautiful Game’, football packs the thrill and excitement of remarkable performances as well as the pain and suffering of endurance and character. Every match has its own highs and lows and both players and fans go through them together. There are also prejudices in the footballing world, like in the society. And money, deals and corruption.
Nothing captures the drama and emotions of the world's most popular sports better than cinema, the world's most powerful medium. There have been many influential films around football ever since Pele and his fellow actors such as Sylvester Stallone and Michael Caine made Escape From Victory in 1981 about war and freedom. It was football that kept political activists going in the Robben Island prison where Nelson Mandela was jailed during apartheid in South Africa, brilliantly portrayed in the 2007 film More Than Just a Game.
Many new films around football exploring not just the game, but different aspects of life, have been released on streaming platforms to coincide with the end of the football season. Or, the end as we are witnessing now. May is the month football fans around the world are usually glued to television to watch the finale of the Champions League and the world's top leagues. Not this year. The coronavirus outbreak has closed down sporting action like almost everything else. But there are football films to watch, for fans and others, like the following seven movies:
Forever Chape
The Chapecoense football club were seeking South American Cup glory when a chartered plane carrying their players crashed into a hill in Medellin, Colombia on May 8, 2017. Almost the whole club was wiped out in the crash, considered one of the worst sports tragedies ever. Forever Chape tells the story of Chapecoense's rise to fame from a Series D club founded in 1973 in a small southern Brazilian town to the flight that ended it all. A moving tribute, the documentary also shows how the club is rebuilding itself again with help from the society and football fraternity.
Forever Chape (2018), Documentary, Dir. Luis Ara, 73 minutes, Brazil (Amazon Prime Video, Netflix)
A Mighty Team
Maxime Belloc is a phenomenal player in the French top league. A member of Paris Saint-Germain club, he is also a controversial player known for his temper and tantrums. After an off-pitch injury, Belloc returns to his village to rebrand himself as a star who cares. He, however, has to first build bridges with his father, the coach of the local youth club. French acting legend Gérard Depardieu stars in A Mighty Team (alternatively titled La Dream Team) as the coach-father, who helps his son, who he hadn't seen in a decade-and-half, learn values of sports, and life.
A Mighty Team (2016), Feature, Dir. Thomas Sorriaux, 95 minutes, France (Netflix)
Holy Goalie
An unorthodox monk is sent to a mountain monastery in Spain threatened with closure because of lack of funding. The students and teachers of the monastery look up to the new priest who wants to save the seminary building from being converted into a luxury hotel. The priest goes on to organise the monastery's amateur football players into participating in the Champions Clerum tournament in the Vatican, a twist on the Clericus Cup in Rome called the "clergy's equivalent to the World Cup". If they win, they will save the monastery.
Holy Goalie (2017), Feature, Dir. Curro Velázquez, 95 minutes, Spain (Netflix)
Forever Pure
Racism in sport is the theme of Forever Pure, which premiered at the 2016 Jerusalem film festival. The Beitar football club in Jerusalem signs two new players from Chechnya to boost their campaign. Soon the club's fans erupt in anger, hounding the management for abandoning their traditional values. Beitar play in front of deserted galleries as their supporters stay away in protest. The club's fortunes tumble sending the big club to the bottom of the table. The film won an Emmy for Outstanding Politics and Government Documentary in 2018.
Forever Pure (2016), Documentary, Dir. Maya Zinshtein, 85 minutes, Israel (Netflix)
Sudani From Nigeria
Malayalam filmmaker Zakariya Mohammed's highly acclaimed debut film is a charming portrait of his native Malappuram's romance with football. Sudani From Nigeria paints a provincial life swashed by the arrival of migrant players from Africa. When Samuel, a player from Nigeria, is injured, his club manager Majeed brings him home to save the money that he doesn't have. The player's troubles back home mirror Majeed's own struggles to keep a club alive only through passion. In the middle of the migrant story emerges the power of women more determined than that of the players on the pitch.
Sudani From Nigeria (2018), Feature, Dir. Zakariya Mohammed, 124 minutes, India (Netflix
Back of the Net
Science brain Cory Bailey arrives in Sydney from Los Angeles to join Harold Academy's Semester At Sea programme in a research vessel. Instead, she finds herself all at sea in Harold Soccer Academy. Cory, who has never kicked a football before, soon realises her science lessons could be useful in a soccer field. She turns the science teacher to her fellow players, telling them how to use magnum force to calculate the perfect kick, or how Beckham bends it. Disney channel's teenage star Sofia Wylie plays the role of Cory in this family and children's entertainment drama.
Back of the Net (2019), Feature, Dir. Louise Alston, 86 minutes, Australia-United States (Netflix)
Forbidden Games
Abandoned in an orphanage, Justin Fashanu grew up to become a football star in England. He played for Norwich as a 17-year-old and became the first black player to land a one-million-pound transfer when he joined Nottingham Forest in 1981. "I am playing for the black people who have been living in the ghettos," said Justin, who scored the goal of the season against Liverpool during 1979-80. It was incredible to see a magnificent goal from a black player on television then. His career soon goes downhill in the face of a string of sex scandals. The documentary explores the tragedy-filled life of the first footballer to come out as gay.
Forbidden Games: The Justin Fashanu Story (2017), Documentary, Dir. Jon Carey and Adam Darke, 80 minutes, USA (Amazon Prime Video, Netflix)
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