KINGS OF KAWERGOSK II
Syrian Kurdish football prodigies chase their boyhood dreams and outrun war, borders, and time in a decade-long epic, from childhood mired in a refugee camp in Iraq to adolescence climbing up the German football hierarchy.
TRAILER
SETTING
Kurds fleeing the Syrian Civil War had escaped to KRI (Kurdistan Region Iraq). The ensuing years of war, ISIS, airstrikes by Turkiye, and now fractious relations between Kurds and the new Syrian government have kept them from returning to their homeland.​​​ Over the course of a decade, Kawergosk Refugee Camp has transformed from a mass of tents into a town of dirt and cinder block. It is a foretoken for many refugee camps and communities worldwide. As former lives are reduced to rubble, temporary stays are now becoming long-term lots, with some children growing up almost entirely within the camp's barbed-wire fences.
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Asylum seekers who are able to find an exit to Europe must then navigate sobering realities and uncertain futures as immigration and its complexities erupt into a defining fault line of contemporary Europe. Here, in legal and societal limbo, adolescent-age asylum seekers in particular inhabit liminal spaces, liminal identities, and live at thresholds in-between.
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Kings of Kawergosk II traces a sweeping macro-narrative with multiple global issues as the backdrop, from years of displacement during the Syrian Civil War, to uncertain futures in a Europe increasingly opposed to asylum seekers. Although, through all the hardship and heartache, at the forefront of the story is football, destiny and the chasing of boyhood dreams.
STORY
Kings of Kawergosk II tells the stories of two football prodigies, Nizar and Islam, as they and their families try to find a way forward after an unending series of conflicts in Syria mire them in Kawergosk Refugee Camp for nearly a decade.
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Although the boys have European football aspirations, rather than just being a road-to-the-pros narrative, Kings of Kawergosk II is a deeply sublime exploration of childhood — with all its transcendent magic, pitfalls, and triumphs — in the context of a football obsessed Kurdish refugee community and its families.​
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Nizar, 14 years old, dreams of playing for a big club in Europe. However, his understanding of the world outside the camp’s fences and how professional football works is closed-off and marked by naivete and despondency. Believing that life in Kurdistan is hopeless and smugglers are the only way out, Nizar makes a series of decisions that puts both his prospects as a footballer and his life on a downward trajectory. With a coach’s friendship, Nizar seeks the resilience to get back up after his disappointments.
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Islam, 10 years old, comes from a family of professional footballers and the young prodigy is already camp-famous. Islam’s family hopes to immigrate to the US and has waited for years on the Kafkaesque UNHCR process which seems to be going nowhere. Through his boyhood imagination and the camp’s own mythology of football, Islam transcends his circumstances and becomes his Real Madrid heroes by excelling on the pitch in ever bigger competitions.​​ At the cusp of his teenage years and a critical age for footballers, Islam takes the perilous trip to Germany. Living in an isolated refugee dorm, Islam joins a local football club and is befriended by a young coach and social worker. Together they climb their way up the leagues towards a professional level. Shifting immigration policy leaves Islam in limbo, and as each season closes, football becomes his fragile path forward in a tumultuous Germany.
DIRECTOR's STATEMENT
The families featured in Kings of Kawergosk II came to Kawergosk Refugee Camp thinking it would be a few months stay, but they’ve now been stuck for nearly a decade. That’s an entire childhood; some of the kids can neither remember nor imagine what life might be like outside of the camp.
As a social impact theme, Kings of Kawergosk explores how spending childhood in a refugee camp shapes a child/adolescence’s beliefs and psychology.
This question is weighty and pressing, minors are the majority of the population in refugee/IDP camps worldwide and increasingly camps are turning into stays of long indefinite duration. How this affects youths’ psyches and how to care for developmental psychology in refugee camps and asylum seeker spaces warrants urgent examination. Kings of Kawergosk II delves into this theme by exploring the role of football in the lives and minds of its young stars.
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I was researching football in Kurdistan when COVID hit, shutting down all the airports in Iraq. What was supposed to be a one month trip turned into nearly two years marooned in KRI. During this time, I was embedded in the camp community teaching photography and organizing football matches. Associate producer and Kawergosk resident, Sabir Rasheed, would joke, “Welcome brother, now you’re stuck here too.” Being stuck in Iraq, however, provided unique insight and empathy for the greater ordeals and mental trials that the families in Kings of Kawergosk II continue to experience, and resulted in a film that is brimming with heart. The years in Kurdistan were a beginning of the story, I hope that in the end, everyone is able to get to where they want to be, including the big stadiums of European football.
Creative Team Bios
Producer/Director - TW is a director/DP who works primarily in documentary and branded content for companies which have included The North Face, LEGO Group, NHL, Anomaly, and Mailman Group. TW has taught multiple photography courses in Kawergosk Refugee Camp and done video work for NGOs in the region. TW is currently a registered resident of Kurdistan Region Iraq.
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Associate Producer - Sabir Rasheed is Syrian Kurdish and fled Damascus, Syria with his family because of the civil war. On arriving in Kawergosk Refugee Camp seven years ago, he taught himself English to fluency. He has worked as a photo-journalist and researcher for numerous humanitarian organizations. Sabir prefers the video game FIFA to football in real life.