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.
Acting
Franco Nero's weathered gravitas anchors every frame
Direction
Sedlars balance sports-movie beats with concentration camp horror
Production
Muddy pitch becomes character—hope and filth intertwined
Director
Dominik Sedlar
Franco Nero
Old Branko
Caspar Phillipson
Colonel Franz
Filip Tallhamn
Karolyi Faraco
Andrej Dojkić
Laszlo Horvath
Viktor Kulhanek
Young Branko
Armand Assante
Commander
Milton Welsh
Peter
Robert Maaser
Hans Gruber
Philippe Reinhardt
Henckel
Andrea Zirio
Sandor Stekely
Markus Gertken
General
Nikolai Nedergaard
Aaron
Inva Mula
Magda Stekely
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Based on real 1944 'Death Match' in occupied Ukraine where Dynamo Kyiv players defeated German teams and faced brutal consequences.
The Sedlar brothers previously directed Holocaust documentaries; this marks their controversial pivot to narrative filmmaking with actual survivor testimonials framing the fiction.
US
