Incredible Football Festival of India (IFFI)
When November swings around it’s time to roll out the red carpet as a plethora of mega stars from Bollywood fly into Goa to celebrate the International Film Festival of India (IFFI). The week long extravaganza brings glamorous actors and directors from the film fraternity in contact with fans of the big screen. This year’s event happened between the 20th and 28th of November in Panjim and was extra special for me.
On the sidelines of the main event, an open air football film festival was organised by Serendipity, which took place from the 22nd till the 27th of November at the Children’s park in Campal. The idea behind the screenings was that Goans love football, so this would attract them towards attending the glitzy annual event.
The friendly German professor, Jans Tilman was the curator of the football documentaries and was present to interact with the audience before and after the movies. This was actually Jan’s second trip to Goa as he previously organised similar football screenings at IFFI in 2011. On average each day, two very short documentaries were shown to warm up the crowd before the main movie. Good lighting surrounded the big screen and there was a popcorn stall which added to the quaint ambience.
The International football documentaries included:
Libere Indirecto (Indirect Free Kick) Juanjo Gimenez - Spanish, 10 min
Maxima Pena (Maximum Penalty) Juango Gimenez - Spanish, 11 min
Sudani from Nigeria Zakariya Edayur - Malayalm, 120 min
Rodilla Juango Gimenez - Spanish, 18 min
Lebanon Wins The World Cup Tony Elkhoury & Anthony Lappe - Arabic, 23 min
Der Ganz Grobe Traum (Lesson of a Dream) Sebastian Grobler – German/English, 113 min
Boca de Fogo (Fire Mouth) Luciano Perez Fernandes - Portuguese, 9 min
Das Wunder Von Bern (The Miracle of Bern) Sonke Vortmann – German
L’ultim Partit (The Last Match) Jordi Marcos – Spanish/ Catalan/Flemish, 70 min
Eighteam Juan Rodriguez-Briso - English, 69 min
Inside The Volcano the Rise of Icelandic football Saever Gudmundsson – English/Icelandic, 86min
Il Mundial Dimenticato (The Lost World Cup) Fillipo Marcello & Lorenzo Garzella - Italian /German/ Spanish, 85 min
Out of the movies I got to watch, I loved L’ultim Partit, which was a documentary on the late Dutch legend Johann Cruyff, which also featured inputs from Pep Guardiola and Xavi Hernandez. It showcased Cruyff’s enthusiasm for the game, cemented the belief in his own football ideologies and the immense contribution he played through his charitable foundation in the twilight years of his life.
The movies presented were innovative, inspiring and informative. The crowd were also introduced to exciting mockumentaries. Let’s hope that this football theme becomes an annual part of IFFI, which sees more participation from Goan football fans in the future.
Also during IFFI, Indian Sports movies such as Gold, 1983, Mary Kom, Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, M.S Dhoni: The untold story, Soorma were screened by Khelo India, at the joggers park in Altinho, which provided a further short in the arm for sports movie buffs.
You know comes next with festivals like this on sporting world! Yeah that's right! Sportsbetting and online egames
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