The world as we know it today is the result of the actions of the past. Empires and colonization. Wars and the collapsing of those empires. Treaties, honoured or broken. Allihopa: The Dalkurd Story focuses on DalKurd a football club founded by Kurdish refugees in Sweden. Like any new club they started at the lowest level, but what sets them apart is that they moved swiftly up their divisions. The documentary finds them one win from advancing to the highest division of Swedish football clubs, with only three games left in their season. And from there they have a larger goal: to one day play against one of the international clubs from the countries in the land that was outlined for an autonomous Kurdistan at the fall of the Ottoman Empire during the Treaty of Sèvres but was nullified by the Treaty of Lausanne.
It is a sports film and a political film. The two are interwoven into the fabric of the piece because it is in the fabric of their lives. I’ve always been frustrated whenever I see an athlete take a political stance, like Colin Kaepernick, and receive public backlash that they shouldn’t be allowed to take political stances while on the field, court, pitch etc. Athletes don’t stop being who they are during game time. Intrinsic things will always matter. You see that when the players receive the news about the 2017 Kurdistan Region Independence Referendum results, but more notably when they hear that those resounding results will not be enacted upon, and there will still not be an independent Kurdish state.
I think a lot of the themes of the film can be distilled in one scene with a man on a blowhorn addressing gathered fans with this speech, “Anyone who speaks negatively about another group is not welcome to sit with us. We Kurds get humiliated all the time. How the hell can we humiliate others?” It is a film that welcomes you into this community of footballers striving to find home, community, and make their countrymen proud. And play great sport.
The film delves into immigration politics in Sweden along with how underfunded/underattended the team is compared to some in much lower divisions. One would hope that since the documentary was filmed their fanbase has expanded, or maybe it will expand in light of the documentary. Or at least if they are still underfunded, they will get funding to be on par with those in their division. Films use framing devices, and this one doesn’t hide its POV. I’d hope it would be hard for people to view the sequence at the stale dance hall with the lady with regressive views on immigration/refugees that cuts to Pasha’s lively wedding and not want to be away from the dance hall folks and their views.
The documentary starts by telling you the team has three games left and they only need one win to achieve their goal of advancement… so logic dictates there are a couple of ways this could go. They either take the three games until they win dramatically, or they win the first game and then we do see them in the next season and the scope is larger and they are going off to perhaps play one of those other teams from places like Turkey or Iraq. But the great thing about it being a sports movie is it doesn’t matter if the structure might be predictable, it is the people you’re rooting for. And I had to stop myself from looking up what happened. That means it was very effective. I also may have wanted to run onto the pitch.
Allihopa: The Dalkurd Story from Kurdish Canadian director Kordo Doski premiered at Hot Docs.
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