‘Captains of Zaatari’ Director Ali El Arabi on Soccer as Ticket to a Future For Syrian Refugee Teens
It took Egyptian director and producer Ali El Arabi six years to shoot “Captains of Zaatari,” which world premieres in the Sundance world doc competition on Jan. 31. He shot it mostly on the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan. which hosts some 80,000 Syrians forced to flee the civil war in Syria, more than half of which are children. At the camp, the director focused on the lives of two talented teens, Mahmoud and Fawzi, who are best friends and dream of becoming professional soccer players. They get a shot at it thanks to a Doha-based sports academy called Aspire. El Arabi spoke from Cairo to Variety about how he gained deep access to the team captains’ lives and, by extension, to a potent depiction of the redemptive power of soccer, friendship and “the right that refugees have to connect with the world.” The excerpted conversation follows.
What is most striking about the doc is the intimacy.
What is most striking about the doc is the intimacy.
- 1/28/2021
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
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