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A new local film tells the story of how the love of soccer united political prisoners at Robben Island. GAYLE EDMUNDS spoke to director Junaid Ahmed and Wright Ngubeni, one of the stars of the film.

It is fitting that two years before South Africa hosts the biggest and most prestigious football event on the global calendar that More Than Just a Game should be released on local screens. The film is a docu-drama that tells the story of how a group of teenage political prisoners fought for the right to play soccer during their incarceration on Robben Island.

When most of us think of the notorious prison it is the faces of Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Ahmed Kathrada, among others, that come to mind, but there were thousands of other prisoners there too. Some, like those whose stories are told in More Than Just a Game, were imprisoned for up to 20 years while still in their teens. A shocking thought in our new democracy.

This film tells the stories of Anthony Suze (Wright Ngubeni), Mark Shinners (Presley Chweneyagae), Lizo Sitoto (Tshepo Maseko), Sedick Isaacs (Az Abrahams) and Marcus Solomons (Merlin Balie). In the early 1960s they were all teenage activists from different backgrounds with different political philosophies, but they all arrived on Robben Island together. The prison was only opened in 1960 and these young men, who arrived in 1963, where among the first inmates who worked day in and day out in the stone quarry making the building blocks of their own prison, which they completed brick by brick.

Through the years the group requested the right to play soccer and year after year they were turned down. Until one year the authorities relented, due to pressure from the International Red Cross.

Director Junaid Ahmed is a well-known face on the international film festival circuit and his short film, Lucky, was nominated for a Bafta (British Association of Film and Television Award) in 2006 and went on to win the Best Short Film Award at more than 30 festivals in the same year. He also made Iqakamba - Hard Ball, a documentary about cricket among black people in South Africa. That film won the Best Sports Documentary in Milan in 1996.

Ahmed says that there was no shortage of material to work with once he got the call from producer Anant Singh to do the film and he was excited to get going. "Doing this film married two of my interests - film and sport. Also, Chuck Korr, an American sports historian, had already spent 10 years researching soccer on Robben Island. He came over here as a guest lecturer and he was shown a pile of dusty boxes marked 'Robben Island sport'."

The results of Korr's research can be seen on screen and Ahmed says that Korr's work "helped shape the narrative of the film".

The film is edited in such a way that the actors dramatise a particular event and then the real person is interviewed about the same event.

This style can be jarring and it interrupts the flow of the film, but both Ahmed and Wright Ngubeni argue that it is the best way for the true stories to be told. Ahmed says: "I think that there are aspects of this history that are so incredible that people might think that I had taken poetic licence. Instead we are seeing their story told by themselves." Ngubeni concurs: "If it was in a fictional style it might have drifted away from the truth. These guys are alive, why not let them speak?"

While I see Ahmed's point, I am still of the opinion that the film would have flowed better if it had been a straight dramatisation of the story.

However, even if the style is problematic, Ahmed manages to get the audience to invest in the characters and the stories. It would be impossible not to feel the joy of the young men as they realise their dream of playing soccer. It is impossible not to get caught up in the euphoria as the prisoners build up the game from a couple of hours in a dusty courtyard in their prison garb to a proper football field and colourful playing kit.

Also, as interest in the game grew within the prison so too did the infrastructure around it, there were rules and the game was played and managed according to the International Federation of Association Football's (FIFA) rules. One of the founding principles was that the game had to be inclusive, thus prisoners from different political factions played together.

Ahmed says: "The hardships they faced deepened their shared purpose, as did the soccer they played. Soccer brought everyone together. The seeds of negotiation were sown in these situations and it was about reclaiming their humanity."

It's quite funny to watch the prisoners debate and discuss slight issues in a controlled way, never letting themselves seek redress outside of the Football Association's sphere. Ahmed explains: "Soccer became, for them, like a microcosm for developing democracy. They fine-tuned negotiation through soccer. They played FIFA rules so as to show the authorities that they can be disciplined and they were practicing for when they would rule their own country."

Ngubeni, who is only 20 years old, says he found it daunting to play a real person. "It was very hectic. It's challenging and nerve-wrecking to play a real person. As an actor you find common ground and find a mechanism to bring life to that character. The nerve-wrecking part is, will you get it right? Will the people who knew Anthony Suze back then think you can pass for an Anthony Suze?"

With a laugh, Ngubeni explains the other reason it was tricky to get a fix on Suze. "It's hard to get the drift of it when he's 30 years older. It was strange to film on Robben Island too. At school you learn about it, then you are there and you have to transform yourself into someone from years before. I am glad I started feeling like Anthony Suze, acting like him, even off camera."

Though not perfect More Than Just a Game is a worthy addition to the lexicon of South African stories on film and as Ahmed says, "it lets the stories of unknown people be known". Something that becomes more and more important as the struggles of the past become more and more distant to successive generations.

More Than Just a Game has been picked up for international distribution by Sony Pictures and Ahmed says that he thinks this film will resonate with global audiences because "this is a typical South African story, but I have tried to get to the heart that beats around the world". He adds that, though it may be a romantic notion, he hopes that the film will inspire South Africans to look past the negativity around them and reinvest in each other. Something worth striving for, no matter who you are and what hardships you face.

Robben Island soccer facts: