Is it just football? Once upon a time at the Azteca…

Albert Camus left us a quote that seems to have been written to give meaning to a film festival such as Thinking Football: “What I finally know with the greatest certainty regarding morality and the obligations of men, I owe to football”. If anyone has any doubts about what the 1957 Nobel Laureate in Literature meant by this phrase, they need only watch the two films that the Athletic Club Foundation’s film festival screened yesterday at the Sala BBK on its fourth day.

‘El partido’, directed by Juan Cabral and Santiago Franco, based on the book by Andrés Burgo, and produced by Industria del Milagro, is pure football. But it is also pure cinema. And it is also history. And human nature. And political conflict. And it is so many things that it is the perfect film to be shown at Thinking Football. In the discussion following the screening, you could just as easily talk about something as momentous as war as you could about something as anecdotal as Bilardo’s superstitions.

Former Argentina captain Juan Pablo Sorín, a guest at the film forum, brought a mate set to the Sala BBK and spoke at length with Galder Reguera about the film’s multiple dimensions: sporting, social, historical, human… A discussion every bit as compelling as the film itself.

Beacon of hope

In the first afternoon screening, Thinking screened another of this year’s gems: ‘Beacon of Hope: The Grenfell Athletic Story’, directed by Theo Lee Ray.

Seventy-two innocent people died in the Grenfell Tower tragedy. A fire that should never have happened. The film takes as its starting point the immense pain left in the wake of the tragedy. And that pain, through a football team, is transformed into hope. Because football is an incredible tool for social transformation.

Once again, football is everything when not everything is football.

Saturday 14: “Shooting for Socrates” (18:00) and “Another League” (20:00)

At 18:00, the festival will screen “Shooting for Socrates”, a heart-warming film set in Belfast in 1985 and directed by James Erskine. Told through the eyes of a nine-year-old boy, the film combines football, family and historical context in an inspiring story about overcoming adversity.

Thinking Football’s curtain closer focuses on women’s football the film “Pioneras” (‘Another League’ is the offical English language title). This feature-length production tells the story of the women who defied the social norms of early 1970s Spain to blaze a trail in a sport that seemed reserved exclusively for men.

Tickets are free, but must be reserved online HERE