Football under cover – Futbolli nën mbulesë

Synopsis

She shoots, she scores! An exhilarating and historic match between an Iranian and a German women’s football team is played out in Tehran in 2006. Giving girl power its due, Football Undercover follows the sporty girls as they struggle against what seems like endless bureaucratic oppression to make the game happen. Marlene, the lead on the Berlin-Kreuzberg team, visits officials in Germany and Tehran to lobby for it. Niloofar, the main player on the Iranian side, dresses as a boy to practice in a nearby park. Narmila is living out the dream of her mother, who gave up football when she married. Susu, a German Muslim, wants to learn what it’s like to wear a headscarf while playing. A testimony to women’s determination and strength, Football Undercover is an inspiring story of cross-cultural politics colliding with a group of sports-loving women who just want to kick some balls and make a few new friends.

Directors' Biography

Ayat Najafi, Born 1976 in Tehran, Ayat Najafi has studied set design in the University of Tehran. In 2003 he established the “Arta Atelier”, focusing on interdisciplinary, multimedia approach to theatre, as well as experimental short and documentary film, whose subject matter dealt primarily with behaviour in Tehran, and the city of Tehran itself as a concept.
David Assmann was born in 1978 and went to school in Berlin, Heidelberg, Jerusalem, Santa Monica and Konstanz. Since 2001, he has studied film studies at the University of Mainz, a course of studies, which brings together theoretical and practical elements from film and theatre studies. Throughout his studies, he has also worked as editor, DJ and presenter on the monthly “Kinoscop” on Radio Ruesselsheim.