The German Football Association (DFB) was founded in Leipzig 28 January 1900. Leipzig was the only stadium during the FIFA World Cup 2006 located on the territory of the former GDR. It was here that four group games and - with Argentina versus Mexico - a game of the round of sixteen were held.
"The city was upside down during the games. Downtown Leipzig was not only occupied by the fans of France and Spain during those football games, but temporarily also dyed in orange by the fans from the Netherlands." tells Co-Producer Michael Geidel of the production company MiriquidiFilm.
"The FIFA World Cup 2006 was one of the greatest sporting events in the history of the City of Leipzig. The launch of the web-documentary on 2 June 2015 during the "Day of Sports" of the 1000-years-of-Leipzig civic festivities is therefore a special major honour", explains Geidel.
Interactive Web-Documentary with a fresh view on the complex topic
The film is an interactive web documentary about the economic, social and cultural impact of the FIFA World Cup on people who live and work in the immediate vicinity of World Cup stadiums. In Brazil (Rio de Janeiro), Germany (Leipzig) and South-Africa (Johannesburg) were twelve personal stories from local people collected.
Combined, these stories paint a unique picture of what happened around three major stadiums in the weeks and months leading up to the World Cup (Rio de Janeiro) and how people are looking back at the event several years after (Leipzig and Johannesburg).
Creatively mixing audio stories, text stories, street photography, Google Street View, Google Maps and news stories from several archives, the viewer is given an intriguing insight into the effects of a major sports event like the FIFA World Cup on people's lives.
Who are the Champions? is a Submarine Channel production in co-production with the Dutch newspaper NRC and Miriquidifilm (Leipzig).