One World Cup

Leone Stars is a documentary currently in production about a group of young men who were left as amputees after the civil war in Sierra Leone and are now struggling to over come this hardship through playing soccer… not only amongst themselves but against the entire world. They have been travelling to international tournaments for amuptee soccer teams AND winning but most importantly spreading awareness for amputees as they go.

The production team ran a successful campaign through the crowd funding service kickstarter.com and most recently pitched at the Toronto International Film Festival’s ‘Pitch This’ event, winning some more development money to finish shooting. I was rooting for them, its great to see this sort of documentary with a message start to go places.

On the second day of shooting, while at the Football Factory, I happened to meet a few guys making similar sort of documentary of their own. Over the next few weeks we kept running into each other at the same places covering the same stuff. Eventually we started talking more about our projects and they gave me some valuable tips on some great locations in the city to shoot. I was making this documentary entirely by myself at this point but always had the idea to get another camera rolling during the final game to capture the reaction of both sides. I asked them if they could help and they were game. So for the final, while I was with a large contingent of Spain fans, they were simultaneously shooting the Holland supporters. It worked out well, the video they shot was an excellent contribution.

They are currently developing more interesting projects and have subsequently become a big part of this production, the first people to get on board in a substantial way since I started it. The documentary they were working on is called A Football Tale. It was screened at the Canadian Sport Film Festival and provides a nice glimpse of the same time, place and themes this documentary is about.