AFRICA UNITED
Zico came to Iceland from Morocco to seek his fortune. After ten years running his own small business, Zico goes bankrupt. Desperate and depressed he decides to fire up his amateur team called Africa United and take them into the semi-professional 3rd division. He calls upon immigrants all over Iceland, players from Morocco, Nigeria, Colombia, Serbia, Kosovo, Gambia and Guinea to help realize his vision. The road to success is rocky and mid-season Africa United has lost all games; their best player walks out and Zico decides to meet his role-model in football in England for advice. Having done so, he comes back with fresh ideas on how to approach his goals in life and football.

REVIEWS - AFRICA UNITED
from THE GRAPEVINE (ICELANDIC MAGAZINE)
The word “documentary” doesn’t usually bring comedy to mind, but Ólaf Jóhannesson manages to make these two worlds combine beautifully in this story of Iceland’s first all-foreigner football team to make it to the third division.

Despite being completely unscripted, stock characters still emerge in the movie: there’s Zakaria, the frustrated but determined coach, his unruly players who squabble with each other as much as they do with referees, and a Zen-like trainer - assuredly the only “Einar Xavier” in the world - acting as a voice of reason. Most of the players are from Africa, as the name suggests, but there’s also a Colombian, a Portuguese, a Serb and others on the team. What keeps this film moving along at a brisk pace through pre-season training and their struggles on the field is the one constant dual dynamic running through the whole film: the characters are all likeable, but the team appears to be veering constantly towards the brink of disintegration.

This tension keeps us engaged through this well-paced movie. Their objective - to win at least three games in the season to remain in the division - puts a more humourous spin on the sports movie formula as well.

Not that Africa United stays within the bounds of any formula: the film takes us out of the country, to Morocco (to relocate the Zakaria), to Serbia (to attend Zlatko’s wedding) and to the UK (where Zakaria wants to meet Charlton manager Alan Curbishley for advice). The film is also probably one of the most realistic depictions of foreigners living in Iceland ever put on the screen, especially in capturing the ambiguity of their feelings about Iceland - Zlatko, at different times, will declare that Iceland has become his home but also complain that, “When an Icelander hears I’m from Serbia, the first question they ask is about the war.” These elements open the film up, bring us closer to the characters and make us care about them.

Jóhannesson might be self-effacing when it comes to this movie (having jokingly compared it to The Mighty Ducks), but make no mistake: this is a movie that dares combine sports, comedy and the documentary format, and does so innovatively and entertainingly.
(Paul F. Nikolov)

AFRICA UNITED

$4.99
Documentary - 80 Minutes - English language

Africa United takes us on an enchanting journey into the dreams and aspirations of a football-crazy coach and his colorful ensemble of players.

"Best documentary" 2005, Icelandic Film Awards
Karlovy Vary - Czech Rep. 2005
Yamagata Japan 2005
DOX Copenhagen 2005
Innsbruch Austria 2005

 

THE MAKING OF AFRICA UNITED BENEDIKT JOHANNESSON
producer
"I guess it started when I was enslaved by my big brother to shoot this football team for three months," says young filmmaker Benedikt Johannesson when asked about the starting point of Africa United, a docu flick by Olaf de Fleur Johannesson. "I basically had very limited directions of what to do. My brother Olaf just told me to go and shoot, with somewhat carless attention. I always thought that he was just being kind to his little brother, by making me do "something". I guess his attention was tuned up when he saw my summer results from the shoot."

OLAF DE FLEUR JOHANNESSON
director
"The beginning, yes, I give all that credit to my little bro, Benedikt, the material he nosed up enabled us to make a fantastic trailer, show it, and get sponsors, co-producers and whatnot. I always wanted to make a film about football, and through the years I´ve seen many bad films about this beautiful game. Instead of risking addition to that misery, my colleges (Ragnar Santos and Benedikt Johannesson) and myself decided to find an authentic football team to see the "real" thing happen on the screen. I had known the team Africa United, played with them for several years and when the manager Zico Zakaria decided to enter the 3rd division it all came by itself. The contrasts where obvious, an amateur team with players from over 10 countries hoping to succeed in the semi-professional 3rd division in Iceland. The filming process took over 3 years in total, shot at various locations in Iceland, Serbia, Marocco, England and Germany."

RAGNAR SANTOS
producer / director of photography
"We had so many ides on how to work with the camera in this film. Largely however I was limited by the directors decision to film as much as possible and then squeeze the material into it´s structure. Therefore I choose a kind of guerilla style for the project. Given that we used numerous cameras, staff, helicopter, cranes and so on. I found early on that over-analyzing and forming the camera too much would strangle the subject. The cameras in Africa United seem therefore wild and loose which suits the material perfectly."