The Workers Cup

Screenings

2018 Season
Amsterdam, London, New York

With unprecedented access to FIFA’s 2022 World Cup stadium construction sites and labour camps in Qatar, The Workers Cup follows one group of men from among the 1.6 million migrant workers preparing for the world’s largest sporting event. In the shadows of the controversial building sites, the men enthusiastically train to compete in a football tournament of their own: The Workers Cup. Exposing long work hours for scant salaries, limited freedom of movement, and harsh living conditions in isolated labour camps, this documentary explores universal themes of ambition, aspiration, sport, and masculinity, as the protagonists wrangle hope, meaning, and opportunity out of their extremely precarious circumstances. Official Selection, Sundance Film Festival 2017

Filmmaker(s): 
Adam Sobel
Year: 
2017
89m
Language(s): 
English, Hindi, Gha, Tui, Nepali, Malayalam, Arabic
Genre: 
Documentary
Filmmaker Bio(s): 
Adam Sobel
Director

Adam Sobel is a filmmaker who grew up in Arkansas, spent the past 5 years in Qatar, and recently relocated to Chicago. He has produced television and journalism around the Middle East for outlets including The Guardian, CNN, and ITN. Sport’s role in society is key to Adam’s work. In 2013, Adam directed a series on Mt. Everest following the first woman from Saudi Arabia to reach the top. The Workers Cup is his feature film debut.

Distributor: 
Autlook Film Sales
Film Website: 
The Workers Cup film website

“Insightful and moving, this film shows the inherent unfairness of young men from the world’s poorest countries essentially giving up their lives and leaving their families to build vanity projects in the world’s richest countries.”—Nicholas McGeehan, former researcher, Middle East and North Africa Division, Human Rights Watch

To learn more on this topic visit HRW.org