In 2003, while on his first trip to Sierra Leone with friend and photographer Pep Bonet, Agusti met an amputee soccer team at the team’s practice session at a refugee camp. Inspired, they began filming and photographing the team. Agusti recalls, “There was a moment when the players asked us, ‘What are you going to do with the photos and video?’ ” Agusti explains he wanted to capture the story of the players and show their strengths or “what people are able to do.” Their material became the basis for Agusti’s short film documentary on the team, One Goal.
Agusti uses his work as a tool to promote awareness. The filmmaker arranged for the amputee soccer team to visit Barcelona and recently coordinated an AIDS education program in Barcelona schools. He also incorporated his documentary, MuzuZangabo, which tells the story of an HIV-positive man’s travels to the Congo and his contact with local activists fighting the disease, into the course.
For Agusti, emotions rise above technique. “It is emotion that gives you a sense of what you are doing. You first need to have something to say...then you can find the means to express yourself.“ Inspired by people who strive to change their realities, he shows a positive Africa, one that deals with poverty, illness, and corruption but that “is also filled with artists and activists who are changing society or pushing society to make change.”
Stay tuned for telegraph21’s feature of One Goal during the 2010 World Cup South Africa.
This piece comes from Steffie Kinglake, co-founder of telegraph21, a new video magazine that features film documentaries and art videos from around the world. www.telegraph21.com
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