Football Under Cover

Germany, 2008, 86 min.
Directed by David Assmann, Ayat Najafi
Cast:
English
Web site
25.6, 21:00

Winner of the Berlin international film festival in 2008 for best queer documentary as well as the audience’s choice award for a queer movie. Tehran, April 2006. The national Iranian women football team and a football team from Berlin get ready for the first official match ever to take place between two women’s teams in Iran. The crowd is made up of thousands of women, the atmosphere in the stadium is electrified, and the ecstatic spectators feel free for a few moments. Outside the stadium, behind a concrete wall and an iron gate are the men, who have been forbidden to enter. Although they only want to play football together, the two teams undergo a long and exhausting process of almost a year before they get the necessary approvals. During that year we shall meet Marlene Assmann who initiated the game, and also Niloofar, who dresses in men’s clothes and goes out to play football on the street – even though that could get her in trouble. The girls don't discuss their sexual orientation, gender issues don’t even surface verbally, and yet – some of the scenes leave little room for imagination. Football Under Cover is not only a journey between two different cultures, it’s a film on female and gender empowerment, and above all – a sweeping cinematic experience that made the audience in Berlin laugh, cry and even shout during the screening, with wild applause at the end. David Assmann and Ayat Najafi are special guests at this year's festival.
The screening of this film is courtesy of The Goethe Institut Tel-Aviv.