‘The Goals Of August’ review: Doc follows football tournament in a sleepy Greek village

Dir: Dimitris Koutsiabasakos. Greece. 2025. 117mins

Excessive up northern Greece’s Pindus mountains lies a sequence of villages which, for the previous 40 years, have held an annual soccer event each summer season, hosted by the earlier 12 months’s winner. The competition punctuates Dimitris Koutsiabasakos’ largely observational movie, though these anticipating a typical sporting arc of wins and losses will discover he’s as rather more concerned with documenting life within the host village of Armatoliko, which lies within the south of the vary, as he’s in what occurs on the pitch. 

 Crammed with the jostling energies of the area

As languorous because the time of 12 months it depicts, The Objectives Of August invitations us to fall into the rhythms and power of village life by following the day-to-day actions of its inhabitants and guests, who swell in numbers by means of the summer season. The movie has its world premiere on house turf within the Worldwide Competitors at Thessaloniki Documentary Movie Competition, however its participating characters and heat authenticity ought to assist it to safe additional competition play elsewhere. 

Armatoliko’s scrubby and parched pitch may not be FIFA-standard however the locals set about getting it prepared for motion, discussing the best way to discover a tractor to chop the grass and crowbarring out rocks. As cell phone calls are made to rearrange fixtures, one wonders how on earth they organised this again within the Eighties. In the meantime life within the village ticks alongside, with sheep and goats clambering by means of it. One girl, who introduces a list of animals by title, says that the sheep are as a lot for emotional assist as producing cash. Villager Tasoulis, who doesn’t look a day over 70, talks about his current one hundredth birthday celebration. “I cried, I blew out candles, the entire thing,” he says.

Many documentary profiles of villages like this one strike a melancholic word, suggesting dwindling populations because the youthful generations are misplaced to the cities. Koutsiabasakos, who comes from the realm and has beforehand celebrated it in documentaries together with The Grocer (2013), paints a way more vibrant image. The inhabitants could also be skewed in direction of the aged however, as Tasoulis signifies, previous age can final what is perhaps thought-about a lifetime elsewhere, and huge households, together with many youngsters, are seen coming collectively for sports activities days and church occasions. 

Additional into the movie, a handful of individuals communicate on to the digital camera, together with a person who returned to the village, decided since his youth to construct a house for himself there, and one other who, after harm halted his personal soccer profession, now enjoys teaching the native staff as a pastime. Area is made for girls’s voices too, as they debate the worth of hiring a priest or discuss in regards to the meals they make. 

Whereas life within the village at first appears sweetly sleepy, the soccer matches reveal a extra uncooked power – hinted at early on when somebody observes that its staff was disqualified from collaborating for 2 full years. Throughout a match with close by Neraida, the anger of one of many younger gamers threatens to kick-off right into a full blown brawl. Koutsiabasakos consists of black-and-white footage from a referee bodycam throughout the video games, which affords a detailed proximity view of the tensions however does break the temper somewhat.

The matches are when the tight-knit nature of the varied village communities involves the fore, as grudges held over from the earlier video games make themselves felt. For all of the locality’s quaint look, there’s nothing mild about one participant who declares: “In the event you don’t give him a crimson card, I’ll shoot you within the head.”

The Objectives Of August is stuffed with the jostling energies of the area, whereas the rating from Theo Papadmimitriou is damaged up by locals singing people songs of affection and loss. Koutsiabasakos’s love of this place and its folks is current in each minute of his movie, and he undoubtedly scores a purpose for the house staff.