November concludes with two must-sees for documentary fans and sports devotees alike. The first is Ronnie O'Sullivan: The Edge of Everything, and the second is this Sky offering about football in East Germany.
The film focuses on Berlin's BFC Dynamo, the police football team where 96% of members were on the payroll of East Germany's Ministry for State Security - the Stasi. The club's president was the Stasi's boss, Erich Mielke.
Over the course of the film, we hear from former players, some of whom defected and others who stuck it out until the Wall came down in 1989, about Mielke's determination to keep his grip on the team, the league, and the public. Even at a remove of over 30 years, the trauma is palpable.
With football as a political tool, BFC won the championship every year from 1978 to 1988, the players' talents eclipsed by Mielke's pathological pulling of all available levers. However, as the honours piled up, the anti-authoritarian sentiment grew on the terraces, where the fans felt emboldened to say all the things that couldn't be said elsewhere. BFC's last league title was a portent of what was to come.
A fascinating companion watch to the Oscar-winning The Lives of Others and the series Deutschland 83, 86, and 89. Stasi FC excels when it comes to interviewees, archive footage, and tension. The only fault is that, at 87 minutes, it's too short.
Stasi FC is available on Sky Documentaries.
