Soccer Project Screening

By | October 30, 2009

We had the pleasure of hosting a screening of the work-in-progress Pelada (previously known to most of us as “The Soccer Project”) here at Duke on October 29th, and got the chance to talk to the filmmakers, three of whom are Duke alumni. As John Turnbull, editor of The Global Game and also a Duke alum, put it after the screening, the film somehow captures that football game many of us carry around in our heads — a pickup game, played in a random place with strangers, that can open up a space for community, communication, even communion. I thought it was a wonderful movie, as did the large crowd, which gave it a standing ovation. And we had the treat of perhaps the best question I have ever heard posed in a university setting, from a young boy who asked the essential question: “Why did you do it?”

I hope we’ll be able to host a local premier of the film when it is released next year, and I (along with the filmmakers, I’m sure!) would love to hear comments about the film from those who were there.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/-B5WxyGkDao" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Category: Films Women's Soccer Tags:

About Laurent Dubois

I am Marcello Lotti Professor of Romance Studies and History at Duke University. A specialist on the history and culture of France and the Caribbean, notably Haiti, I am the author of Soccer Empire: The World Cup and the Future of France. I founded the Soccer Politics blog in the Fall of 2009 as part of a Duke University course called "World Cup and World Politics," whose students helped me develop the site.

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