Narrator
The first part of the film shows an actuality street scene of traffic in the Strand. Behind the traffic we can see the entrance to the Gaiety Theatre on the Strand, advertising its latest show 'My Girl'. The second part is a different film altogether, spliced onto the first and is R W Paul’s Turn Out of a Fire Brigade filmed in November 1896 in Newcastle at the Westgate Road fire station. The film date is 1896.
From his early days as a Championship Manager wonderkid through to his celebrated return to Hammarby, Kennedy Bakircioglu has always been a cult figure. In his final game before retirement, Kennedy came on and produced a moment that broke the internet. How do you celebrate scoring a free kick from 30 yards? Beer please!
Documentary about the Football World Cup held in Argentina in 1978, focusing on the competition and behind the scenes of the most important soccer competition in the world. Two versions of the 1978 official film exist, the first "Copa 78 - O Poder do Futebol" was made by Brazilian directors Maurício Sherman and Victor di Mello in 1979 but was later withdrawn by FIFA because of its controversial content. The film includes an interview with Rodolfo Galimberti, one of the leaders of the Montoneros guerrilla group and also made accusations that the Argentinian competition organisation committee had deliberately hindered Brazilian chances of success by tampering with the pitch at Mar del Plata.
More than 15 years after leaving the country, Eugène Murangwa, the former goalkeeper of the most popular club in Rwanda and national team, returns to his native land to pass on the values of a sport which saved him in 1994 to the young people of an association that he created with former football players. Illustrated with previously unseen archives, the film throws a new light on the history of Rwanda through football, a sport which served the “civilizing” mission of the colonizer, allowed the Hutu Power to mobilize the youth and helped the reconstruction of the country after the genocide.
A sport like football is primarily a passionate celebration, but one that is so massive (economically, politically and socially) that it, of course, also brings many problems. Olallo Rubio's third documentary (and fourth film in total), Ilusión Nacional, is a take on how the world's most popular sport relates to Mexican society and politics.
“Kick Start” re-lives Florida’s trek to the program’s first national championship in 1998, coming up against women’s soccer juggernaut North Carolina. To build a national championship program from the ground up is no easy task and given the landscape of women’s collegiate soccer in the mid-1990s, Becky Burleigh’s charge was even more difficult.
In the 1986 World Cup, Diego Maradona, the world's greatest football player, reached his apotheosis, redefining what is possible for one man to accomplish on a football pitch. His ability to take control of the ball -- the game -- an entire tournament -- split the world in two. It was both illuminating and an affront, beguiling and an outrage, and the fervor that surrounded him was unprecedented, bordering on the religious. Constructed from archive material, "Maradona '86" is an ode to this ultimate footballing idol, basking in the operatic intensity of his performance in Mexico as he wrote his name on football history forever.
