Tag: Africa
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‘Soka Afrika’ (2011): well-meaning but misinformed
The problem of human trafficking through football, also known as football trafficking, has been covered in the media for almost 10 years. In Soka Afrika, Suridh Hassan puts together a sensitive portrayal of 2 teenage footballers trying to make a career in Europe in 2009. However, I do not recommend this documentary because it puts…
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‘New Generation Queens’ (2015) – when women can’t play football
Megan went to Zanzibar and was looking for a pickup game. She found a women’s team called the New Generation Queens. They were getting chased off fields because Zanzibar is 99% Muslim, and women aren’t supposed to play football. But they prevail, and this pleasant little film, with an ethnographic story and a long title,…
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Football is medicine for ‘The Other Kids’ (2016)
First-time Director Pablo de la Chica initially set out to make a documentary about the young Ugandan players who had a chance to visit FC Barcelona in 2007. While investigating, de la Chica found Mubiru Reagan playing soccer in a garbage dump near the Mandela National Stadium. The landfill is heavy with the toxic smell…
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The poverty around WC 2010 is ‘Meanwhile in Mamelodi’ (2011)
During the month the 2010 World Cup is played in South Africa, Director Benjamin Kahlmeyer shows the life that goes on, meanwhile, in the impoverished township of Mamelodi. The township is only 16 miles from Loftus Stadium, but residents’ interaction is mostly limited to buying noisy vuvuzuelas and enjoying Bafana Bafana’s games on small black…
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Being ‘Men in The Arena’ (2017) helps exit Somalia
Men in the Arena comes to your screen in the time of the xenophobic Trump Administration. It took over 3 years for Writer-Director J.R. Biersmith to deliver his tale of 2 young Somalian footballers, whose steadfast friendship and soccer skills are crucial in bringing them to the USA.
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Trying to qualify for WC 2010 in ‘Laduma! Benin’s Journey’ (2011)
Part travelogue, part cultural anthropology, and part football history, Director Richard Shepherd’s film Laduma! Benin’s Journey captures an insider’s view as a small African nation tries to qualify for WC 2010.
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Remembering the Zambian NT in ‘Eighteam’ (2014)
As much as I like parts of the film Eighteam, much of it circumnavigates the tragic plane crash that killed almost the entire Zambian National Team on April 27, 1993, off the coast of Gabon.
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‘I Play Soccer’ (2011) at a Sierra Leone academy
I Play Soccer is a 6-minute short film about the Sierra Leone football academy run by the Craig Bellamy Foundation. By Stefan Lovgren, the film is more advertising than documentary. Like many soccer movies, I learned more from researching the subject than watching this film.
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‘World Cup Soccer in Africa: Who Really Wins?’ (2010)
Originally titled Fahrenheit 2010, this film provides reams of detail on the issues and controversy around hosting the FIFA 2010 World Cup in South Africa. In Nov-Dec 2008, first-time Director Craig Tanner interviews leaders on both sides in the country.
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‘Coach Zoran’ (2014) – his only friend is a goat
Watching the BBC documentary Coach Zoran and his African Tigers is like watching a train wreck, where the runaway locomotive is the Serbian coach of the new South Sudan national team.
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African life and soccer in Malawi ‘Bush League’ (2010)
Documentarian Cy Kuckenbaker followed his Peace Corps buddy Jake Wilson to Malawi, where Jake had signed up for a second stint. Wilson’s assignment in Malawi is business development, which he implements by helping the villagers of Zolokere to grow vegetables and then use the proceeds to buy equipment for the town soccer team. The soccer…
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‘Surviving and Soccer in Sierra Leone’ (2015) – an Ebola story
Erison Turay and his mother lost 38 of their relatives to Ebola in Sierra Leone and were left with 15 family orphans to care for. He and his mother overcame their infections, but survivors cannot find jobs and their struggles to live continue on.
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Is ‘The Beautiful Game’ (2012) the best way out of Africa?
Producer Julian Cautherly and Director Victor Buhler began working on their Africa10 film project in advance of WC 2010. Their lofty goal was to show how a passion for soccer encourages development and change in Africa. But for those in poverty, soccer is more like a winning lottery ticket out of the country to a better…
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Football trafficking in ‘Soccer’s Lost Boys’ (2010)
Soccer’s Lost Boys is an evocative documentary about soccer trafficking in Africa. Vanguard correspondent Mariana van Zeller interviews players, parents, and coaches to show how West African families hand over life savings to agents who promise a tryout in Europe.
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‘Soccer City’ (2010) lacks passion for the game
Nick Fitzhugh went to South Africa during World Cup 2010 and filmed Soccer City, ostensibly about the impact of soccer on South African culture. He interviewed and followed the lives of various youth players and former National Team members.
