São Paulo – In the last World Cup, the Palestinians could not participate in the classification rounds for the competition. They were not allowed to travel by the Israelis. They will also not be in the 2014 World Cup. They lost in the classification rounds, affected by the daily life of athletes in a nation in conflict, including the hardships to build stadiums and restricted locomotion, among others. The stories of those trying to play football in Palestine will be shown in movie "Campo da Paz" (Field of Peace), an initiative of the Brazilian Gilmar Rodrigues.
"I have always been interested in the Middle East,” said the director and scriptwriter, originally from Rio Grande do Sul, who currently lives in Rio de Janeiro. The plan for the documentary started being developed two years ago and the first images became a short movie to be shown on Thursday (1) at a restaurant in the city of São Paulo, in a closed session. The idea is to show appreciators and the press what has already been done and what may be done to proceed with the greater objective, production of a long movie. Rodrigues hopes to have the movie ready in 2012.
The director and his team were in Palestine in October and November 2010 and established a football team there, with boys aged 14 to 17. And it is the story of the team that is portrayed in the story of the movie by Rodrigues. According to the director, there should not be conflict images in the documentary. “We basically show the hardships of sports in Palestine as a sign of what is taking place there. All aspects [of Palestinian life] are marked by occupation,” explained the movie maker. The objective is to discuss social and political questions through sport.
The director aims to bring the group to Brazil during the 2014 World Cup, for friendly matches or for festive participation in the competition. The players may travel to Brazil before, as the team has the support of Corinthians. The movie project as a whole has the support, in Palestine, of the Palestinian Football Federation and of the Ministry of Sports, and, in Brazil, of the Institute of Arab Culture (Icarabe), as well as the local Arab community.
The short movie is nine and a half minutes long and narration is by actor Lázaro Ramos. Rodrigues’ team should return to Palestine to shoot new images for the long movie. Apart from director and scriptwriter Gilmar Rodrigues, the short movie also counted on Bettine Silveira, the producer, Hassan Zarif, production coordinator, Ding Musa, director of photography, Thiago Andries, cropping, and B Negão and Rodrigues, soundtrack. The movie is being produced by Txucarramãe Filmes, the company belonging to Bettine and Rodrigues, and has the support of Palmares Produções.
*Translated by Mark Ament
