Offside



SUMMARY / SYNOPSIS


„Offside“ is the working title for a documentary film project about different perspectives around the newly build 5 star football stadium in Donetsk in the eastern Ukraine. Formerly known for its coal mining, Donetsk is currently preparing for 7 matches within the UEFA Football European Championship, and the accompanying media attention. The coming change, expectations of the future and thoughts of the past preoccupy the people around the stadium who, despite the spacial proximity of their homes, live in completely different worlds. The protagonists will be accompanied during their everyday-life, from the old habitants, who live in the simplest and poorest conditions, to the visiting tourists, on to new and extremely wealthy neighbours. The respective point of view of every main character is used as an individual narrative position. In the course of the film an image of a place in the midst of change, conflicts and expectation, develops. The documentary is situated next to the Donbass Arena, in the period shortly before the EURO 2012. Through the different points of views of the individual main characters, it tells the development of the area around the stadium and about the conflicts that emerge in the course of this change. The highlight and the possible end of the film could maybe be a rehearsal of the opening ceremony of the tournament. The film should give an intense view of the live „offside“ and immediately besides the Donbass Arena during the course of the huge media interest surrounding the EURO 2012, and give the viewer a distinctive look into the situation of everyday-life in the Ukraine, immediately next to the big „football circus“.




CONCEPT / STYLE


To show the different outlooks of the protagonists, the changes in their lives and the area, and the different expectations around the Arena in the centre of the EURO 2012, the people living in its immediate neighbourhood are accompanied in their daily life. In this way the possibility is created of understanding each perspective and point of view from its own surrounding, instead of stringing together „fixed“ interviews. Ideally, the information is transmitted while the character is moving through his daily life, interacting and speaking with other people. Stylistically, this results in many shots in which the protagonists can be accompanied using a steady-cam. This way a second, visual information layer is created next to the spoken information, which transmits an authentic and very realistic impression of the daily paths and efforts of the characters.

The plan is to work intensively with 4-5 main characters, who help give each local social class a mouthpiece. The most important topics for the selection of the main characters, besides their dispositional suitability for such a project, will be rich and poor, old and young, past orientated and future orientated, russian and european.






TOPICS


„Offside“ should, as the title indicates, give a view just beyond the gigantic media interest and the football field, of the life offside the stadium. Through the accompaniment of different characters distinctive topics become more tangible and obvious from very personal perspectives.

- On one hand there is the „Football circus“, for which the whole city transforms itself, even though the whole event will last basically only 7 days (Donetsk is holding 7 matches during the Championship), and the city will not uphold any touristic value after the tournament. A comparison to the circumstances in South Africa during the world championship in 2010 comes to mind.

- The stadium itself could be the material for a story, with its development from a former war cemetery to a 5 star entertainment centre, build by the richest man in europe, in his old coal mining hometown, where he managed to get incredibly wealthy.

- On the other hand, the social contrasts of the Ukraine come to life with the individual points of view. There is the still visible post-soviet change with its winners and its losers, who live in different worlds together in the same country. This becomes extremely obvious in the immediate neighbourhood of the Donbass Arena. (See locations and project outline)

-The neighbourhood itself shows a process of special gentrification. In this case, the building of the 5 star arena led to an increase of value of the land immediately around the stadium and to a great interest of rich Ukrainians, who wanted to have a residence close to this new centre in Donetsk. And suddenly luxury villas got build in the midst of old decayed barracks, and relations within the neighbourhood got turned upside down.

- Finally, the European Football Championship stimulates the inner Ukrainian discussion about europe, that had already divided opinion within the country. Donetsk is situated in the very centre of the pro- russian and anti-european east-ukraine, and within the tournament, it will become one of the centres of europe for some days, generating a lot of talk in the city.






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> Project Outline (13min)      
www.ducken.de ::: Christian Plaehn