Crazy for Football: The Craziest World Cup

A group of patients coming from many mental health departments throughout Italy, a psychiatrist (Dr. Santo Rullo) as sports director, a former five-a-side football player (Enrico Zanchini) as coach and a world boxing champion (Vincenzo Cantatore) as athletic trainer. These are the protagonists of Crazy for Football, a documentary by Volfango De Biasi on the first Italian national five-a-side team participating the world cup for psychiatric patients in Osaka, a trip from Italy to Japan. The film begins with the selection of the group of 12 who will join the retreat and eventually will reach the most coveted tournament, the World Championship. However, to act as a leitmotif there is another, deeper trip, through the rapids of conscience of those who knew the loss of psychiatric illness. A balanced path between health and insanity that belongs to all of us. A movie where players and not their illness are the protagonists, with the scope of fighting the prejudice that surrounds those suffering from mental illness. Motion as an antidote to the static, therefore football as a saving therapy, a condition that makes everyone feel equal, as said correctly by Dr. Santo Rullo in a scene of the film: "this experience brings to their mind the emotional memory of the time when they were not sick".