The Blue Scallywags

Why does someone become a football fan? Is it about excitement, passion, being in a group, or a club’s unique history? What drives football fanatics? Cezary Grzesiuk spent a decade filming the lives of supporters of the Ruch Chorzów club. These many years of work allowed him to photograph the close-knit community of football fanatics. Not from the side-lines, not from behind a wall of police officers, but from the very heart of the ultras sector. This enabled him to show the brighter and darker side of the world of football fans in Poland and elsewhere. Themes in the film include the friendship between fans of Atlético Madrid and Ruch Chorzów and the hooligan code passed on from father to son. Penetrating different supporter groups, the director lets fans and fanatics speak, in an effort to find out who modern-day football supporters really are. (Warsaw Film Festival)