Kategorie C

„I began documenting their lives, if only because I hoped each film would have a happy ending.“ (Gerd Kroske)

A controversial study of the phenomenon of football hooliganism, looking at the social context and tribal instincts that lie behind it.

This documentary gives a voice to organizers, DJs and party guests. Through their memories and confessions as well as unpublished videos and photos 20 years of history come back to life.

A look at this football tragedy

The documentary accompanies a group of soccer fans twice on a train ride to a soccer match - first in 1991 and then again in 2006. Have the fans learned something or are they still hooligans?

The “Bowlingtreff” is a bowling alley situated right in the centre of Leipzig opened in July 1987. At that time the quality of life in Leipzig and the whole GDR got worse. Houses collapsed because of poor conditions, public life and amusement was on a very low level. The “Bowlingtreff” was not merely an urban entertainment centre but a revolution in those days. Built with the help of hundreds of volunteers without permission of the state authorities in Berlin the building expresses a free and international architecture known as postmodernism. It is an architecture that was never seen before in Leipzig. Marble and parquet on the floor, a glass roof and beautiful pink pillars. The atmosphere was western as time witnesses remember it.

Don Letts examines the history of this notorious subculture in a fascinating documentary, which features interviews with members of different skinhead scenes through the decades. Beginning in the late 1960s, Don fondly recalls a time of multiracial harmony as youngsters bonded over a love of ska, reggae and smart clothes as white working-class kids were attracted to Jamaican culture and adopted its music and fashions. But when far-right politics targeted skinheads in the 1970s and 1980s, an ugly intolerance emerged, and Don reveals how the once-harmonious subgroup has since struggled to shake this stigma.

When Dortmund is playing against Schalke, riots and brawls are destined to happen. The fans of both clubs are shown during soccer matches and asked where the abysmal hatred against the opposing club comes from.

At Hotel Astoria, the former hotspot of Leipzig, guests were served champagne and turtle soup while the Stasi listened in. Animated memories from times gone by.

At the 2016 European Championships, violent clashes between Russian and English supporters in Marseille put the spotlight on Russian hooliganism. Russian hooligans injured over 100 English supporters, beating two into a coma, and it raised serious concerns ahead of Russia hosting the 2018 World Cup. Filmmaker Alex Stockley von Statzer travels to Russia to experience the country's football fan culture first hand. Featuring footage filmed in Marseille in 2016, rare interviews with members of some of the most feared firms like the Spartak Gladiators and Orel Butchers, and new footage of an organised fight for wannabe recruits, this show uncovers a world where brutal violence has become a mark of honour and a symbol of newly resurgent Russian masculinity.

Through the socio-political overview of the problematic structure of fan clubs and football supporters in Serbia, this movie focuses on a particular case of an incident involving a French citizen - football fan in Belgrade, which led to 12 young people being convicted to 240 years of prison. One of them is Stefan Velickovic. This is the story about the man who became a part of a huge political scandal, and his right to defend himself. As someone who has not even been at the spot of the incident, he has been pronounced guilty of a crime. What are the interests and intentions for making Stefan a scapegoat?