‘CHAMPIONS’ – Produced By The Oscar-Winner Andrés Vicente Gómez, Starring Yassir Al Saggaf And Fatima Al Banawi, Announces GCC Release Is On 10th March 2022

The creators of the feature film “CHAMPIONS” have today announced that its forthcoming release across the GCC is on 10^th March 2022.

The 90-minute uplifting comedy, produced by Oscar-winning producer Andrés Vicente Gómez and directed by Manuel Calvo, tells the story of Khaled, the assistant coach of a top Saudi Arabian football team. Arrogant and easily riled, Khaled is the temperamental assistant coach of a top Saudi Arabian football team. After a particularly frustrating match, Khalid’s temper lands him in disciplinary court. He is deprived of his prestigious job, receives a big blow to his ego, and is forced to carry out an unexpected community service: coaching a non-professional team of players with intellectual disabilities.

It is only as his new team counters his bad attitude with good humour, kindness and an infectious innocence that Khaled realises how much he has to learn from them.

The Saudi football film starsYassir Al Saggaf, the famous host of The Voice (MBC) talent show, alongside Fatima Al Banawi of Barakah Meets Barakah, as well as a cast of young people with intellectual disabilities, many of them recruited from Jeddah’s Help Center with the aid of its director, Maha Al Juffali.A crew of 90 film professionals from Saudi Arabia and Spain filmed in various locations across the city of Jeddah.

“CHAMPIONS” is a remake of the top-grossing Spanish film “Campeones” and has been adapted for the Arab market by Saudi scriptwriters Maram Taibah and Wael Al Saeed. The filmmakers were inspired to make this film in Saudi Arabia because of the opportunity to raise awareness of people with special needs in the Kingdom, as the previous film had achieved in Spain. The filmmakers were also greatly inspired by the true story of the Saudi football team, which were crowned champions – four times in a row- of the International Federation of Athletes with Intellectual Impairments (INAS) Football World Championships.

“CHAMPIONS” will be released on 10^th March 2022 across the GCC by VOX Cinemas, which operates a regional film distribution division and produces content, in addition to being the region’s largest cinema exhibitor. Most recently, it distributed Al Kameen (The Ambush), which is the highest-grossing Arabic language movie ever in the UAE. The release of “CHAMPIONS” is another prime example of how VOX Cinemas is committed to bringing premium Arabic content to the big screen and also marks another collaboration between VOX Cinemas and Andrés Vicente Gómez, who previously joined forces for the release of Saudi movie ‘Born A King’, which proved hugely successful with both audiences and critics alike across the GCC.

The film’s trailer can be viewed here.