The makers of Kicking It
Posted on 24/01/2008
Two years ago Neil Barrett, Director of Photography and Susan Koch, award-winning film Director, set out to create a documentary about this powerful story of football changing lives.
Nine countries, thousands of miles, hours of jet lag, near death experiences with mad drivers in Russia, 270 hours of film, one camera meeting it’s end over the side of table top mountain later and here we all are: “Kicking It” narrated by Colin Farrell follows 7 players on their journey to the Cape Town Homeless World Cup. Selected for its World Premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, ESPN will distribute to 93 million homes around the world.
As the mayhem land of opportunity that is Sundance begins to set Susan, Neil and Jeff Werner, editor and co-director, mull over their Kicking It adventure.
Neil: It has been quite a journey. We’ve mortgaged the house, sold Susan’s children to raise the money and we have met such amazing characters, all who embraced us and were so nice to us, making us welcome, often when they had nothing, living in poverty.
Susan: We still miss everyone, it is hard not to become attached, of course you are. I am still close to Craig (player from the USA) who texts me all the time and we have met his sister. I offered to be his surrogate mother I am so proud of what he has achieved and how he has turned his life around. He is a real success story.
Neil: Yes, Susan says to her husband Chris: 'Craig does 2 jobs you know, not just one, two jobs'. She is very proud of him.
Susan: And Slava invited us to his wedding, only we couldn’t do the 18 hour truck journey again through Russia. The first time around the driver nearly killed us with some near misses and everytime she did she made a hysterical laugh as though she was crazy. In the end I had to explain, look you drive too fast and must be more careful.
What drew you to the Homeless World Cup to make a documentary in the first place?
Susan: I read about it on a World Economic Forum blog and it was such a great idea, we knew immediately we wanted to pursue it. It's the chance to raise awareness of a challenging issue in an entertaining way.
Neil: I used to work in a homeless shelter in London and although it is an endless problem we also had a lot of fun there. They are big characters, kings of the street. And I love Soccer. So I knew that we would encounter great characters for the film and have a lot of fun with the soccer - Competitions make great movies.
Jeff: I was so interested in the coaches and their stories, they are all incredibly articulate men, very caring and doing major work here.
What was your experience of Cape Town?
Jeff: It is a gorgeous country. However you are contstantly aware that they
haven’t outlived their history. You are aware of the segregation, and read the papers about all the crime and guys with machetes. We met a guy who sings with
the Cape Town opera and continues to live in the townships and
continues to chose segration.
The matches look great what was involved in shooting them?
Jeff: We shot every single game for each team that involved one of the players we were following. There were six teams and something like 18 matches per team through the tournament. We used 4 cameras per match, including a crane, so that is over one hour of footage per game to select from.
Your top 3 moments of Sundance?
Neil: Finally getting 2 hours sleep today; seeing it for the first time on the big screen; seeing the audience's reaction as everyone loved it, got what it was about and laughed and cried with the film.
Susan: The response from the audience; meeting one person who had flown specially to Sundance from New York and one person from Canada just to see Kicking It as they want to start a street soccer league back home; hearing lots of people who are not into football who love it anyway.
What does success for the film look like to you now it is out there:
Neil: Raising lots of money for the Homeless World Cup (viewers are invited to take action, play a part in ending homelessness, and make a donation at www.globalgiving.com/kickingit)
Susan: Telling the story to reach many more people to raise awareness of the issue, but in an entertaining way.
This is football changing lives. Were you yourselves changed thorugh the experience?
Susan: Yes and in a really good sense. Homeless people are not the stereotype of an alcoholic living on the streets. I discovered a lot of humanity in these men, along with the international differences in homelessness. There are a set of circumstances that creates a situation where an individual becomes homeless and there but for the grace of god go you and I.
