A Free Kick For Social Justice

By: Christian | April 6th, 2008

players Football will forever be known for its intense rivalries that can often expose the deep divides within society. But as this article from the Chicago Reader tells us, the beautiful game can also bring cultures together by highlighting the personal struggles we must overcome.

Marcelo Piña’s documentary Free Kick, which premiered this past weekend at the 24th Annual Chicago Latino Film Festival, documents 5 different footballers from the Palestinian national team, from Jerusalem to Santiago (there are over half a million Palestinians living in Chile), and to Piña, the film was an opportunity to humanize their struggle, saying:

“People have become numb to the conflict. They hear about it all the time, but they don’t know the chronology or what it’s about. Football is a language that a lot of people understand.”

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john

This isn't exactly a new perspective. In general soccer serves to break down perceived cultural/ethnic in small settings - i.e. pickup games represented by many nationalities tend to work wonderfully. Whether or not soccer has an impact on a larger scale - internationally - is pretty up in the air.

John

www.spotlightsoccer.com
Mike

The subjects of this article have some political complexity. Aside from that some rather interesting comments from the readers, but no clue as to the veracity of the complaints. Sounds like a good film, though.