Sunday Ball | Telescope Film
Sunday Ball

Sunday Ball (Campo de Jogo)

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  • Brazil
  • 2014
  • · 71m

Director Eryk Rocha
Genre Documentary

In Rio de Janeiro, close to Maracana stadium, venue for the grand final of the World Cup 2014, we find an ordinary football field in the Sampaio neighborhood. There, football happens as a genuine expression of Brazilian culture. With the games on Sundays, the annual slum football league has 14 teams. Each represents the colors and rituals of their community.

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What are critics saying?

90

The Hollywood Reporter by Frank Scheck

Refreshingly free of the tired human-interest personality profiles that afflict sports documentaries on both the big and small screens, director Eryk Rocha has created an impressionistic, visually stunning cinematic essay.

90

Variety by Jay Weissberg

Stunningly shot and marvelously edited to capture the rhythms of the game, the pic transcends its subject much in the way Roger Angell’s essays on baseball offer rare pleasures even to those uninterested in the game.

80

The New York Times by Jeannette Catsoulis

Captured more for poetry than for clarity, the topography of penalties and free kicks can be impossible to follow. But Léo Bittencourt’s photography has flash and flair, and hardscrabble determination on a real-life field of dreams has a narrative all its own.

70

Los Angeles Times by Noel Murray

Even viewers who know nothing about soccer can enjoy how Rocha captures the beauty of a communal event through editing and shot selection alone.

70

Village Voice by Michael Nordine

Trash talk among competitors and spectators alike is a constant background hum, the informal banter taking the place of traditional talking-head documentary interviews.