The Athletic Club Foundation’s film and soccer festival opened with ‘La bella stagione’, an Italian film about Gianluca Vialli and Roberto Mancini’s Sampdoria
The 11th edition of Athletic Club Foundation’s ‘Thinking Football Film Festival’ kicked off on Monday evening with a screening of Italian production ‘La bella stagione’ (The Beautiful Season). Galder Reguera, director of the festival, spoke before the film began and introduced Athletic’s guests of honour for the occasion: Marco Ponti – the film’s director – and Ivano Bonetti – former centre-back in that iconic Sampdoria side. Both attendees took part in a post-screening Q&A moderated by renowned Italian football journalist Filippo Ricci. Meanwhile the club’s vice-president, Nerea Ortiz, stressed the ongoing importance of culture as “a fundamental tool for transforming and improving society”. She added that “culture, community and social inclusion are the three pillars that form the basis of the Foundation’s work”.
Afterwards, Gorka Martínez, representing the BBK Foundation, presented the 2022 Audience Award to Ronnie Sandhal, director of the winning film ‘Tigrar’ – a film that tells the story of ex-footballer Martin Bengtsson, who also attended the event. On Monday morning, the director and former footballer were present for a special screening of their film which was directed at Lezama’s technical staff and local educational centres. After the film, which deals with the subject of mental illness in sport, Martin and Ronnie took questions from the young schools students in attendance.
Coming up on Tuesday: ‘I Believe in Miracles’ & Thomas N’Kono’s ‘Green Lions’
Thinking Football continues on Tuesday with another set of fantastic football movies. At 18:00, the festival will introduce a new section called ‘Thinking Football Revisited’ in which we’ll be reshowing Jonny Owen’s extraordinary film, ‘I Believe in Miracles’. This documentary tells the story of Brian Clough’s legendary, European Cup winning Nottingham Forest side. There are still a few tickets left and they can be booked for free HERE
And the headline film at 20:00 is British feature ‘Green Lions’, directed by Billy Dosanjh. This DAZN-produced documentary is about Cameroon’s triumphs at the 1990 World Cup in Italy. Thomas N’Knono, the iconic keeper from that side will take part in the post-screening forum. Admission is free, but tickets must be reserved online HERE
