OffsideMovies like Offside
- Key Features:
- Gender equality, Cultural conflict, Social commentary, Football, World Cup, Egypt, Womens rights, Satire, Political satire, Loss of freedom, Group dynamics, Hope
- Tone:
- serious, humorous, satirical
- Target Audience:
- World cinema enthusiasts, Viewers interested in social issues, Fans of political satire, Those interested in Iranian culture
- Emotional Arc:
- Frustration → Hope
Offside

During the 2006 World Cup qualifying match between Iran and Bahrain, numerous young women are caught and rounded up for dressing as men so they could gain access to the game. Guarded by several soldiers in a holding pen, the women attempt to keep updated on the score.
Offside
After its football team is disqualified for insulting a referee during a major game, a small country town risks losing its funding along with its field. To avoid this disaster, there is only one solution: creating a new team made up exclusively of women to defend the city’s colors! But in a community where football has always been an activity reserved for men, these women’s new status will be sure to shake up the daily lives of the town’s residents…

Iranian director Jafar Panahi, who has been barred from leaving the country, arrives at a village on the Iran-Turkey border to supervise a film based on a real-life couple seeking passports to Europe being shot in Turkey, but both his stay and the production run into trouble.

Filmmaker Jafar Panahi and actor Behnaz Jafari travel to a tiny village after receiving a plea for help from a girl whose family has forbidden her from studying acting. Amusing encounters abound, but they soon discover that the local hospitality is rivaled by the desire to protect old traditions.

Various women struggle to function in the oppressively sexist society of contemporary Iran.

Iranian female judokas Leila and her coach Maryam, travel to the Judo World Championship, intent on bringing home Iran’s first gold medal. Midway through the Judo World Championships, they receive an ultimatum from the Islamic Republic ordering Leila to fake an injury and lose, or she will be branded a traitor of the state. With her own and her family’s freedom at stake, Leila is faced with an impossible choice: comply with the Iranian regime as her coach Maryam implores her to do, or fight on, for the gold.

The film captures the daily duality of three young Palestinian women in Tel Aviv, caught between hometown tradition and big city abandon, and the price they must pay for a lifestyle that seems obvious to many: the freedom to work, party, have sex, and choose.

On a building site in present-day Tehran, Lateef, a 17-year-old Turkish worker is irresistibly drawn to Rahmat, a young Afghan worker. The revelation of Rahmat's secret changes both their lives.

Two soccer stories: Alvaro Presutti is a referee who seems to be the last to know about his wife having an affair with a German soccer star. Amedeo Amedei has to please both his father, a die hard Roma supporter and his future father in law, who supports Lazio.

Police officer Jorge Capitão is a competent BOP captain and a Brazilian idol. But after he saved Argentina's greatest ace from a kidnapping, on the eve of the World Cup, he ended up becoming the nation's number 1 public enemy. Expelled from the corporation and discredited by the people, Captain must relearn how to work as a team to avoid an attempt on the Pope in the final of the tournament. That's when the sex shop manager Bia Alpinistinha, a medium and her very crazy mother, enters the scene.

Soccer is an alien world for Walter Vismara, an unfamiliar terrain he's always avoided. But when his job hangs in the balance, he's thrust into the role of goalkeeper by his soccer-obsessed boss. Forced into a relentless routine of practice sessions and taunts, Walter finds himself trapped in a nightmare. His troubles escalate when he discovers his beloved in the arms of his archenemy, adding a personal dimension to his challenges. Determined to prove his worth, Walter devises a plan: to play the fool outwardly while secretly honing his skills. As he navigates this comedic yet challenging journey on the soccer field, will Walter emerge victorious and finally earn the respect he deserves?

Rahim is in prison because of a debt he was unable to repay. During a two-day leave, he tries to convince his creditor to withdraw his complaint against the payment of part of the sum. But things don't go as planned. Is he truly a hero?

The lives of three strong-willed women and a young musician cross paths in Tehran’s schizophrenic society where sex, adultery, corruption, prostitution and drugs coexist with strict religious law. In this bustling modern metropolis, avoiding prohibition has become an everyday sport and breaking taboos can be a means of personal emancipation.

A yellow cab is driving through the vibrant and colourful streets of Tehran. Very diverse passengers enter the taxi, each candidly expressing their views while being interviewed by the driver who is no one else but the director Jafar Panahi himself. His camera placed on the dashboard of his mobile film studio captures the spirit of Iranian society through this comedic and dramatic drive…

Two scientists are chosen as guinea pigs for a time experiment: they are placed in hibernation and should be brought back to life after three years. In the meantime, however, World War III breaks out and life has been wiped off the surface of Earth. When they wake up, it turns out that not only 50 years have passed but also that they are the only living specimens of the male sex in a new, underground society composed exclusively of women.

With his uncouth manner, Professor Pohl doesn’t enjoy the best reputation at the university where he works. To make matters worse, he makes a racist remark when student Naima arrives late for his lecture. Unfortunately for him, a video of his verbal outburst spreads like wildfire on the Internet, and the university’s president, Lambrecht, is called to deal with the incident. But Pohl is not dismissed. Instead, he is put to the task of helping Naima prepare for an important debating competition. The lecturer and the student could not be more different, yet they are thrown together to work as a team.

Selma, a psychoanalyst, deals with a cast of colorful new patients after returning home to Tunisia to open a practice.

Rouhi, a young bride-to-be, is hired as a maid for an affluent family in Tehran. Upon arriving, she is suddenly thrust into an explosive domestic conflict. The wife is convinced her husband is having an affair and enlists Rouhi as a spy, to follow her husband, and confirm her suspicions. What Rouhi discovers, however, threatens not only their marriage but her own future.

A wealthy Iranian family struggles to contain a teenager's growing sexual rebellion and her brother's newfound conservatism.

Shirin is struggling to become an ideal Persian daughter, politically correct bisexual and hip young Brooklynite but fails miserably in her attempt at all identities.

Four policemen go undercover and infiltrate a gang of football hooligans hoping to route out their leaders. For one of the four, the line between 'job' and 'yob' becomes more unclear as time passes . . .

Álvaro is a marketing manager, divorced with a son who he can barely talk to, living a mediocre life and doing a mediocre job, until his bosses tell him he needs to improve his marketing campaigns for the next 2018's World Cup. He'll soon launch a plan with Argentina's National Football Team and the upcoming qualifiers that may become a lot more risky that he planned.

An Iranian family survives the shah and the ayatollah and moves to France. This story follows the family through it all. Despite the politics, revolution, prison, beatings, assassinations and suicides this is a comedy.

While Aya has dreams of becoming a doctor, her two best friends, Adjoua and Bintou, just like to hang out and spend their evenings dancing, drinking and flirting with boys. Their ambition is to follow Plan C: Combs, Clothes and Chasing Men! But big trouble comes to town when Adjoua realizes she’s pregnant, and the baby’s father is the spoiled son of one of the richest and most feared men in the whole country.

Salam, an inexperienced young Palestinian man, becomes a writer on a popular soap opera after a chance meeting with an Israeli soldier. His creative career is on the rise - until the soldier and the show's financial backers disagree about how the show should end, and Salam is caught in the middle.

A poet, who works as a waiter to make ends meet, postures as a female singer to end a blood feud between two families.

In 1986 Iran, Sahebjam, whose car breaks down in a remote village, enters into a conversation with Zahra, who relays to him the story about her niece, Soraya, whose arranged marriage to an abusive tyrant ended in tragedy.

Armand and Leila, students at Science Po, are a young couple. They plan to go to New York to do their internship at the United Nations. But when Mahmoud, Leila's big brother, returns from a long stay in Yemen, which radically transformed him, he is opposed to his sister's love relationship and decides to remove him at any cost from Armand. To enter Mahmoud and see again Leila, Armand has no choice: he must slip the integral veil! The next day, a certain Scheherazade with a veiled face rings at the door of Leila, and she will not leave Mahmoud indifferent ...

Somewhere in Spain, four ETA terrorists await a phone call before carrying out a mission, while the 2010 FIFA World Cup, where Spanish soccer team is one of the favorites to win, is being held in South Africa.

In Stip, a small town in Macedonia, every January the local priest throws a wooden cross into the river and hundreds of men dive after it. Good fortune and prosperity are guaranteed to the man who retrieves it. This time, Petrunya dives into the water on a whim and manages to grab the cross before the others. Her competitors are furious - how dare a woman take part in their ritual? All hell breaks loose, but Petrunya holds her ground. She won her cross and will not give it up.

Investigating judge Iman grapples with paranoia amid political unrest in Tehran. When his gun vanishes, he suspects his wife and daughters, imposing draconian measures that strain family ties as societal rules crumble.

After England's football (soccer) manager has a heart attack, Mike Bassett is hired as the new manager and promptly announces the team will win the World Cup.

To climb the corporate ladder to success, a businessman agrees to coach his company's all-girl soccer team with the help of his secret weapon: his fiancee's son.

A satirical take on the mundane absurdities of life in modern-day Iran, these nine vignettes illuminate the lighter side of enduring under authoritarian rule. Whether choosing a name for a newborn, graduating from grade school, getting a driver’s license, applying for a job, or seeking approval for a film script, if you live in Iran, you best come fluent in Orwellian discourse.

In the south of Tunisia, two football fan brothers bump into a donkey lost in the middle of the desert on the border of Algeria. Strangely, the animal wears headphones over its ears.

A restaurateur befriends a Syrian refugee who has recently arrived in Finland.

A headstrong young girl in Afghanistan, ruled by the Taliban, disguises herself as a boy in order to provide for her family.

A married couple are faced with a difficult decision - to improve the life of their child by moving to another country or to stay in Iran and look after a deteriorating parent who has Alzheimer's disease.

The mysterious disappearance of a kindergarten teacher during a picnic in the north of Iran is followed by a series of misadventures for her fellow travelers.

Set against the backdrop of Iran's strict and oppressive legal system, this anthology film tells the stories of four men who each face a moral crisis when having to deal with death penalties.

An ambitious soccer referee ends up handling a crucial match between two small Sardinian teams

Stanisław Maria Rochowicz, a bumbling art historian, is falsely accused of stealing a painting. The alleged thief faces five years in prison. Desperate, he decides to hide in disguise as a woman until he can paint a copy of the stolen canvas. Lacking means to live, he takes jobs as a maid for a variety of colorful characters.

A young Saudi doctor campaigns for a seat on the municipal council, finding confidence as she combats prejudice.

After the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the restriction of women in public life, a preteen girl is forced to masquerade as a boy in order to find work to support her mother and grandmother.

For the Olympique de Paris soccer team, this away match scheduled against Caplongue was merely supposed to be one last chore before the end of the professional season. Yet no one could ever have imagined that an unknown rabies-like infection was going to spread like wildfire, turning this small town’s inhabitants into ultra-violent and highly contagious creatures.

18-year-old Layla, a Dutch girl with Moroccan roots, joins a group of radical Muslims. She encounters a world that nurtures her ideas initally, but finally confronts her with an impossible choice.

Filmmaker Talya Lavie steps into the spotlight with a dark comedy about everyday life for a unit of young female Israeli soldiers. The human resources office at a remote desert base serves as the setting for this cast of characters, who bide their time pushing paper, battling for the top score in Minesweeper, and counting down the minutes until they can return to civilian life. Amidst their boredom and clashing personalities, issues of commitment—from friendship to love and country—are handled with humor and sharp-edged wit.

Sami, Tacchini, Yaya and Kader are four small-time crooks from the suburbs of Paris. After a failed robbery, their boss, Carlito, sends them to Canada to spy on his fiancée. There, they are mistaken for a band of professional killers and are hired to assassinate the heiress Léonore de Segonzac...

In a remote, isolated Lebanese village surrounded by land mines, Muslims and Christians live together in peace. As civil strife starts to engulf the country around them, the women in the village try, by various means and to varying success, to keep their men in the dark by sabotaging the village radio, and then destroying the village TV.

A middle-aged Tehranian man, Mr. Badii is intent on killing himself and seeks someone to bury him after his demise. Driving around the city, the seemingly well-to-do Badii meets with numerous people, including a Muslim student, asking them to take on the job, but initially he has little luck. Eventually, Badii finds a man who is up for the task because he needs the money, but his new associate soon tries to talk him out of committing suicide.

The best women of British acting go to an audition for a dream role, primed to take on the role of a lifetime: that complex woman, the strong woman, a woman for today.

Aglaé, a young factory worker, has only one focus in life: her job at a car crash test site. When she learns that the factory is going to be relocated abroad, she accepts, to everyone's surprise, to go to India in order to hold on to her job. Accompanied by two colleagues, she sets out on a perilous road trip to the other side of the world.

In Palmi, a small town in Calabria, Don Vincenzo, a genial retired farmer, has a crazy idea to revive the local soccer team by organizing a bizarre fundraiser hiring the Italian major league Serie A, soccer player Etienne Morville, a bad-tempered guy but among the strongest in the world. Albeit unwillingly, Morville leaves Milan to move to Palmi and try to save his image. In the small town he will come up against a reality of sincerity, which will lead everyone on an unforgettable experience.

At the age of 40, Leila has spent her entire life caring for her parents and four brothers. A family that is constantly arguing and under pressure from various debts in the face of sanctions against Iran. While her brothers are struggling to make ends meet, Leila makes a plan.

In a country where women are in charge, a man goes to unusual lengths to make his dream of marrying the daughter of a military leader come true.

The film follows two brothers over the course of a decade. While they begin as kids in search of thrills in the sprawling slums of Morocco’s Sidi Moumen, we witness their gradual, and ultimately shocking, radicalisation.

After Shideh's building is hit by a missile during the Iran-Iraq War, a superstitious neighbor suggests that the missile was cursed and might be carrying malevolent Middle-Eastern spirits. She becomes convinced a supernatural force within the building is attempting to possess her daughter Dorsa, and she has no choice but to confront these forces if she is to save her daughter and herself.

A journalist descends into the dark underbelly of the Iranian holy city of Mashhad as she investigates the serial killings of sex workers by the so called "Spider Killer", who believes he is cleansing the streets of sinners.

A comedy/drama set in a village and centered on a battle of the sexes, where women threaten to withhold sexual favours as long as the men refuse to install a water pipe.

Iris is a shy and dowdy young woman stuck in a dead-end job at a match factory, who dreams of finding love at the local dancehall. Finding herself pregnant after a one-night stand and abandoned by the father, Iris finally decides the time has come to get even and she begins to plot her revenge.

An Egyptian-American returns to his homeland after twenty years abroad, filled with nostalgia and high hopes. But as he reconnects with his roots, he finds himself caught between two worlds—and begins to experience the reality of a country he thought he knew.

When the actor in a scene for his film Life And Nothing More… has to quit, a film director casts another man for the part. However, complications arise since the man and the woman who was cast for the scene know each other.

Leslie is left with few options when her husband is sent back to war in the Middle East. A modest amount of help arrives in the form of his brother, Salman, who is less than prepared to care for the couple's two preadolescent boys. When Leslie still can't make ends meet on her own, Salman is forced to find employment, but, with minimal qualifications, his only option is to become a mascot for a digital company by donning a bulbous blue costume.

Sami works in a children's home which is set to be closed. The young man is an enthusiastic stadium usher and has convinced the president of the Olympique de Marseille football club to help them keep it open.

Four ordinary women, inflicted by silly societal norms, have to steal, lie, cheat and hide in order to lead the lives that they rightfully deserve.

Occupied France, 1942. Gilles is arrested by SS soldiers alongside other Jews and sent to a camp in Germany. He narrowly avoids sudden execution by swearing to the guards that he is not Jewish, but Persian. This lie temporarily saves him, but Gilles gets assigned a life-or-death mission: to teach Farsi to Head of Camp Koch, who dreams of opening a restaurant in Iran once the war is over. Through an ingenious trick, Gilles manages to survive by inventing words of "Farsi" every day and teaching them to Koch.

Although he always wanted to become a professional soccer player, El Chanfle has settled for being the props boy and water boy for Mexican soccer's Club América, whose coach they both have trouble getting along with because of the Chanfle's heightened sense of honesty and cleanliness on the court, something the rigid coach does not share. When he is asked to cheat during a game he refuses and is fired from his job, but his friend, the team doctor will try to get him back. At the same time, his wife Tere announces to be pregnant, and trying to sell a gun in order to make money for their future, unintentionally scares a old man, Chato, with it, who now seeks revenge.

Mariana and Domenico are on the run from her jealous boyfriend who just happens to be an over-jealous professional football player.

A basketball star is booted out of the NBA when his on-court antics go too far, so he poses as a woman and joins the WUBA.

When Jeff and Cathy’s grandson Jiji is selected for a training camp with Arsenal, it’s a dream opportunity for the whole family to head over to England and meet the royal family.

Xate is an ordinary woman from Midyat with eight children in tow. The only thing that sets her apart is her husband's job as Mayor of Midyat. Until, that is, an extraordinary day changes her life - and the lives of everyone else in Midyat. For the illiterate, uneducated Xate becomes Mayor of Midyat! While she takes on her mayoral duties much as she does those in her house, the infantile rivalry between her children in municipal matters leads to adventures that have the Midyat folk howling with laughter.

25-year-old Khalid Belkacem has failed at everything: college education, summer camp instructor's permit, driver's license, and even his BCG. He never expected to become the first "positive discrimination" member of the police force. But as his mother says: "That's France for you! A country where everyone has a chance."

Santa Claus tries to outrun a gang of knife-wielding youth. It's one of several vignettes of Palestinian life in Israel - in a neighborhood in Nazareth and at Al-Ram checkpoint in East Jerusalem. Most of the stories are droll, some absurd, one is mythic and fanciful; few words are spoken. A man who goes through his mail methodically each morning has a heart attack. His son visits him in the hospital. The son regularly meets a woman at Al-Ram; they sit in a car, hands caressing. Once, she defies Israeli guards at the checkpoint; later, ninja-like, she takes on soldiers at a target range. A red balloon floats free overhead. Neighbors toss garbage over walls. Life goes on until it doesn't.

Djalil Boudaoud and Justine Lacroix are a surgeon and a television reporter who enter a romantic relationship despite the objections of their families to the cultural gap.

A young man seeking his sexual identity decides to take part in the Miss France beauty pageant.

At Beijing World Park, a bizarre cross-pollination of Las Vegas and Epcot Center where visitors can interact with famous international monuments without ever leaving the city’s suburbs, a security guard betrays his dancer girlfriend by pursuing another woman.

Jess Bhamra, the daughter of a strict Indian couple in London, is not permitted to play organized soccer, even though she is 18. When Jess is playing for fun one day, her impressive skills are seen by Jules Paxton, who then convinces Jess to play for her semi-pro team. Jess uses elaborate excuses to hide her matches from her family while also dealing with her romantic feelings for her coach, Joe.

Fatima, a woman in her forties, becomes an online overnight sensation. Sofi and Cami, a pair of young influencers, will try to take advantage of Fatima's sudden popularity by pretending to be her friends, unbeknownst to them that they messed with the wrong person!

The film depicts a world in which Atatürk never became leader, the War of Independence never took place, and the Ottoman Republic continues to exist in a form adapted to the present day. The continuation of the Ottoman Republic instead of the Republic of Turkey, Ankara not being the capital, signs and license plates being in both Turkish and Arabic, and the sultan wearing a suit under his caftan are some of the tragicomic situations that make up the film's story.

Inspired by true events from the spring of 1944 when the Nazis organized a football match between a team of camp inmates and an elite Nazi team on Adolf Hitler's birthday. A match the prisoners are determined to win, no matter what happens.

In a small town in Anatolia, whose inhabitants possess various supernatural powers but still have to deal with ordinary problems, Cemal helps out in his father’s barbershop and, in his free time, acts as a football referee.

Veera, a fire-cracker of a girl who lives in a small village but dreams of playing cricket in the big league. Rohan is an accomplished captain of a county cricket team in England. Rohan returns to India to captain his father's cricket team which has been losing for the last 8 years. In a Village where girls don't play Cricket, Veera has to put on a put on a turban & beard to live her dream.

Convinced that his daughter has forgotten how to laugh, a father shows up unannounced while she's living abroad and bombards her with outrageous jokes.

Abla runs a modest local bakery from her home in Casablanca where she lives alone with her 8-year-old daughter Warda. Their routine of housework and homework is interrupted one day by a knock on the door. It is Samia, a young woman looking for a job and a roof over her head. The little girl is immediately taken with the newcomer, but her mother initially refuses to allow a pregnant stranger into their home. Gradually, however, Abla's resolve softens and Samia's arrival begins to offer all of them the prospect of a new life.

In the Georgian riverside town of Kutaisi, summertime romance and World Cup fever are in the air. After a pair of chance encounters, pharmacist Lisa and soccer player Giorgi find their plans for a date undone when they both awaken magically transformed with no way to recognize each other.

Sadoun is France’s best soccer player whose extra-curriculum pleasures are damaging his play and new contract negotiations. Dispatched by his scheming agent to his home village, he ends up reconciling with his father, relating to his fatherless niece, who dotes on him, and training his local children’s team, whom he takes to championship glory.

A young man drops out of university and goes to the police. He's done nothing wrong he just wants a job. A particular job. Playing the victim in murder reconstructions. Maybe by getting close to death he can manage to cheat on his own.

When a border guard with a sixth sense for identifying smugglers encounters the first person she cannot prove is guilty, she is forced to confront terrifying revelations about herself and humankind.

This fiction-documentary hybrid uses a sensational real-life event—the arrest of a young man on charges that he fraudulently impersonated the well-known filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf—as the basis for a stunning, multilayered investigation into movies, identity, artistic creation, and existence, in which the real people from the case play themselves.

Agathe Clery, a marketing manager for a cosmetics company, is snobbish, stubborn and racist. When she is diagnosed with Addison Syndrome, an disorder that darkens the pigmentation of one's skin, she suddenly finds herself resembling a black woman.

On behalf of a multinational company, a production assistant drives around the Romanian city of Bucharest, interviewing various citizens who have been injured due to work accidents to cast one of them in a “safety at work” video.

The lives of residents in an old Cairo building, "The Yacoubian Building," are affected by issues like corruption, extremism, class disparity, and sexuality. Through diverse characters, the film offers a critical examination of Egyptian society.

The charismatic Snaporaz encounters an alluring woman on a train and pursues her through a forest. He ends up at a hotel populated by women gathered for a feminist conference, where he is an unwanted presence. Snaporaz soon discovers he’s entered a phantasmagoric world where women have taken power.

Andres Cuadrado is an old-fashioned civil servant. Conservative and somewhat macho, he takes his job at the Ministry of Finance very seriously. He considers himself above all a person "as God commands" and, consequently, he takes it for granted that everything responds to a natural, hierarchical and immovable order. After an unfortunate confrontation with a colleague, Andrés is disciplined and transferred to the Ministry of Equality. There everything is totally new to him: there are no assigned places, no schedules, and everyone is a vegan. Andres will have a lot of catching up to do to adapt to this new order of things.

A clique of four young teachers at a high school looks critically at their colleagues. To avoid falling in the same routine, they bring new ideas into the school lessons and play little games and pranks in their spare time -- sometimes get even more childish than their pupils. When they get opposition from the other teachers, they play tricks to get rid of them.

Twelve-year-old Noura dangles uncertainly in that difficult netherworld between childhood and adulthood. His growing libido has gotten him banned from the women's baths, where his mother took him when he was younger, but he's not yet old enough to participate in grown-up discussions with the men of his Tunisian village. Noura's only real friend is a troublemaker named Salih -- the village political outcast.

Samad is nobody’s fool. The narcotics officer has seen his share of a drug dealer’s lies and games, and his patience has come to run thin. While searching for the infamous drug baron Nasser Khakzad, he and his colleague Hamid scour the streets of Tehran, turning an overcrowded prison on its head. With his rough and dubious approach, Samad finally manages to find the criminal’s whereabouts – but things do not quite go according to plan...

Hakim, 35, a friendly neighborhood cop, must infiltrate the Portuguese community for the purpose of an investigation. But can one become Portuguese in three days? Especially when we know that Hakim is a walking disaster at undercover operations. His clumsiness and bad luck turn his many infiltrations into cataclysms. The case is clearly too big for him. Quickly trapped between his feelings and his mission, Hakim, who lives alone with his mother, will discover a community, but also a family.

Riko is an honest and hardworking man who can count on a group of real friends and a loving wife. Things change after he loses his job and experiences a midlife crisis.

