The skanner., February 23, 2011, Page 10, Image 10

arts & entertainment
the Bittersweet Effects of the homeless world Cup
By Brian Stimson
of The Skanner News
W
ith a skeleton crew of two, film-
makers Demetrius Wren and
Christina Ghubril set out to docu-
ment the lives and ambitions of South
Africa’s 2008 and 2009 Homeless World
Cup Teams. The result, the film “Streetball”
will screen as part of the Cascade Festival
of African Films at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday,
Feb. 24 at PCC Cascade Campus’ Moriarty
A&H Building, room 104. Like all films for
the festival, the
screening
is
free.
Visit
www.african-
filmfest.org.
The
event
gathers teams
of the homeless
and excluded to
engage in tour-
naments of Street Soccer, a universal sport
that takes no more than a ball and a hard
surface to play. Made up of a group of
orphans, gangsters, and recovering drug
addicts, the tournament provides them with
a sense of purpose and shared goals, but
also offers a window into a life very differ-
ent from their own.
The film’s director, Demetrius Wren, who
will attend the screening, spoke with The
Skanner News from his home in New York
City about the friendships he made, the dif-
ficulties the team faced and the lack of solu-
tions for South Africa’s street kids.
the Skanner news: Tell me what kind of
role the game of Street Soccer plays in the
lives of the kids featured in the film?
Demetrius wren: Street soccer is one of
those universal games played all over the
world. All you need is a ball to kick around
and you have a game. A lot of times, they’ll
make a ball out of balls of trash and tie it
together with plastic bags and they play
street soccer.
You don’t need a turf, you can play it in
the dirt or in the street. A majority of these
guys in the film are either orphans or
they’re living on the
streets or coming out of a
drug rehab program or are
gangsters. It’s South
Africa’s version of street
basketball. That one thing
where people can come
together and play a sport
and have a good time
between some of the strug-
gles they’re going through. And it’s posi-
tive. A lot of the kids who are doing crystal
meth, they call it tik, or sniffing glue to pass
the time or keep warm. The rules are so sim-
ple for street soccer that its one of these
things kids love to do without harming them
except for the occasional skinned knee here
and there.
tSn: I notice that your background is
very different from the subjects in your
film. Did this affect your filming or the way
that you told or were told the stories in any
way?
Dw: I met them on another project and I
realized we weren’t that different. I’d go
‘Streetball’ screens at
7:30 p.m. on Feb. 24
at PCC Cascade’s
Moriarty A&H Bldg, 104
Page 10 The Portland Skanner February 23, 2011
A scene from ‘Streetball’
home and I’d go back to the hotel the com-
pany was putting me in and they’d go back
to their shelter or whatever situation they
we’re dealing with. That’s why I wanted to
tell their story , unravel the mystery. I’d
seen a lot of docs on the subject before.
There was always an us/them mentality …
when I was there, they were just friends of
mine. We liked the same things, enjoyed the
same things, cared about the same things I
cared about. It was different for them
because I was African American and in
South Africa, it’s something they idolized.
I’d walk in and they’d start singing Jay-Z ‘s
Empire State of Mind, since I was from
New York, so it allowed them to open up
quicker to me than someone else.
There were a lot of people coming there
interested in soccer stories. It was 2008,
2009, everyone was buzzed about the World
Cup coming in two years. They felt I was
one of them.
I grew up with a single mother, growing
up in rural Mississippi. I could relate a lot. I
just happen to hit the lottery, my mom got
married and that guy happened to get a real-
ly good job and so when I was 11 years old
I leap-frogged social and economic stan-
dards. I felt like they were just like me
except they didn’t hit the jackpot when they
were 10 or 11, they just stayed where they
were. Things just got worse.
tSn: How did travelling to Australia for
the Homeless World Cup change the atti-
See BAll on page 14