Founded in 1936, the Sudanese Football Association is one of the oldest football organizations in the world. While the national men’s team has not been able to build on its successes of the 1960s and 1970s (including winning the Africa Cup of Nations in 1970), women are de facto forbidden from playing football due to a social reality shaped by Sharia law. Despite this, they still get their kicks.

In her feature film debut Khartoum Offside, director Marwa Zein follows a group of football-loving, self-confident young women through the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. Defying numerous instances of police interrogation and government harassment, the charismatic Sara, Hala, and their friends stick to their goal: building a national women’s football team. Along the way, they talk about issues such as the division of the country into two states and discrimination against people from South Sudan.

Marwa Zein spent four and a half years working on her documentary, which premiered at the Berlinale in 2019 and was nominated for the Amnesty International Film Award.


This screening takes place in the frame of Take the Knee.