Khartoum Offside

There's no doubting the energy of the female football players who are the subject of this debut feature form Marwa Zein. At the forefront is Sara, a fun-loving sort who is pushing for FIFA status and games. The main problem is, as an intertitle at the start of the film informs us, under the current Islamic military rule, women in Sudan are not allowed to play football. They're also not allowed to make films, which means that Zein deserves credit for undertaking this task at all, even if the end result is patchy.

Zein captures Sara's enthusiasm, along with that of her teammates as they play keepie uppie at practice or talk about the ins and outs of the game in their off-hours. There have been films about women facing discrimination in football before - most notably Naziha Arebi's Freedom Fields, which considered the state of the game in Libya in much more depth. Zein's film suffers in comparison because of a general lack of focus and a dearth of political context.

We hear the women talk obliquely about the situation in the country - from the need for those from South Sudan to take regular HIV and Hepatitis C tests, to a joking conversation regarding adjusting a veil as they play. We also see them, presumably, talking about starting up a coffee shop in order to raise money to fund the rent of their practice ground - but like so much in this documentary, Zein's attention soon wanders off elsewhere, so we never learn what happens to the idea. It's clear there are wheels of male/female discrimination turning within wheels of north/south discrimination but Zein never stands still long enough to consider these in depth.

She has a strong eye and ear for a poetic image and captures the day-to-day fabric of the women's lives well but the context of the situation remains frustratingly opaque. What shines out is the solidarity and strength of the players, who don't let mere trifles like statehood or religious cloud their love of the game. It's a shame to be left wanting to know so much more about the situation they are facing or how things might be encouraged to change.