‘The Goals Of August’ review: Doc follows football tournament in a sleepy Greek village

Dir: Dimitris Koutsiabasakos. Greece. 2025. 117mins

High up northern Greece’s Pindus mountains lies a series of villages which, for the past 40 years, have held an annual football tournament every summer, hosted by the previous year’s winner. The contest punctuates Dimitris Koutsiabasakos’ largely observational film, although those expecting a typical sporting arc of wins and losses will find he is as much more interested in documenting life in the host village of Armatoliko, which lies in the south of the range, as he is in what happens on the pitch. 

 Filled with the jostling energies of the region

As languorous as the time of year it depicts, The Goals Of August invites us to fall into the rhythms and energy of village life by following the day-to-day activities of its inhabitants and visitors, who swell in numbers through the summer. The film has its world premiere on home turf in the International Competition at Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival, but its engaging characters and warm authenticity should help it to secure further festival play elsewhere. 

Armatoliko’s scrubby and parched pitch might not be FIFA-standard but the locals set about getting it ready for action, discussing how to find a tractor to cut the grass and crowbarring out rocks. As mobile phone calls are made to arrange fixtures, one wonders how on earth they organised this back in the 1980s. Meanwhile life in the village ticks along, with sheep and goats clambering through it. One woman, who introduces a catalogue of animals by name, says that the sheep are as much for emotional support as generating money. Villager Tasoulis, who doesn’t look a day over 70, talks about his recent 100th birthday party. “I cried, I blew out candles, the whole thing,” he says.

Many documentary profiles of villages like this one strike a melancholic note, suggesting dwindling populations as the younger generations are lost to the cities. Koutsiabasakos, who comes from the area and has previously celebrated it in documentaries including The Grocer (2013), paints a much more vibrant picture. The population may be skewed towards the elderly but, as Tasoulis indicates, old age can last what might be considered a lifetime elsewhere, and large families, including many children, are seen coming together for sports days and church events. 

Further into the film, a handful of people speak directly to the camera, including a man who returned to the village, determined since his youth to build a home for himself there, and another who, after injury halted his own football career, now enjoys coaching the local team as a hobby. Space is made for women’s voices too, as they debate the price of hiring a priest or talk about the food they make. 

While life in the village at first seems sweetly sleepy, the football matches reveal a more raw energy – hinted at early on when someone observes that its team was disqualified from taking part for two full years. During a match with nearby Neraida, the anger of one of the young players threatens to kick-off into a full blown brawl. Koutsiabasakos includes black-and-white footage from a referee bodycam during the games, which offers a close proximity view of the tensions but does break the mood a little.

The matches are when the tight-knit nature of the various village communities comes to the fore, as grudges held over from the previous games make themselves felt. For all the locality’s quaint appearance, there’s nothing gentle about one player who declares: “If you don’t give him a red card, I’ll shoot you in the head.”

The Goals Of August is filled with the jostling energies of the region, while the score from Theo Papadmimitriou is broken up by locals singing folk songs of love and loss. Koutsiabasakos’s love of this place and its people is present in every minute of his film, and he definitely scores a goal for the home team.