“Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that”. - Bill Shankly
Football is much more than just 22 lightly dressed persons, in most of the world usually men, and in the USA more often women, running around on a huge lawn chasing a leather ball. Today, the football industry is a factory of money for some, but for many it’s a factory of dreams. Through football, millions of people try to satisfy their expectations and needs. And this is the main subject of this year’s edition of Ale Kino! football zone. Here, we will see African children dreaming of a dignified, healthy life; a 19th-century German teacher dreaming of a school ruled by equality, partnership and friendship; a Norwegian 11-year-old dreaming of love and freedom from the school tyrant; young Venezuelans dreaming of breaking free from the clutches of gangs and slums; a German professional footballer dreaming of being something more than just a ball kicker; or the Iraqi dreaming of a country free from war. And, if you can believe it, all of these people connect their dreams with football! Yet, it is not a panacea for the evil of the whole world. Maybe, on the contrary, it is yet another version of the opium of the people? But, as we can see in most of the screened films - it sometimes helps, or at least gives hope.
Jerzy Moszkowicz, football fan and cinema lover