{"id":1583,"date":"2026-06-08T14:37:48","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T14:37:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=1583"},"modified":"2026-06-08T14:37:48","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T14:37:48","slug":"fatma-al-ghanim-former-qatar-womens-soccer-captain-on-her-tribeca-short-about-breaking-taboos-in-arab-sports-i-couldnt-avoid-dealing-with-this-trauma-anymore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=1583","title":{"rendered":"Fatma Al-Ghanim, Former Qatar Women\u2019s Soccer Captain, on Her Tribeca Short About Breaking Taboos in Arab Sports: \u2018I Couldn\u2019t Avoid Dealing With This Trauma Anymore\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<!-- do not apply CSS styles to this element! --><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>\n\tFatma Al-Ghanim is a Qatari athlete and filmmaker who is breaking new ground for women in the tiny country and in the Arab world at large. In 2010, she captained Qatar\u2019s first-ever women\u2019s national soccer team. Now, Al-Ghanim is at the Tribeca Film Festival with \u201cTheatre of Dreams,\u201d a powerful short that\u00a0marks her directorial and acting debut and exposes the fierce cultural opposition to women playing soccer in Qatar from her personal prism.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=1581\">Anthony Jeselnik Announces Stand-Up Comedy Tour (EXCLUSIVE)<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n\tSet against the backdrop of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 and inspired by her real-life story, \u201cTheatre of Dreams\u201d delves into why the country\u2019s female national soccer team \u2014 which was created in 2009 as Qatar was preparing to bid for the 2022 FIFA World Cup \u2014 has been inactive since 2014 and is currently unranked in the FIFA world ranking.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tSegueing from her soccer career, Al-Ghanim became one of the first Qatari women to compete in a triathlon, later serving as the first female board member of the Qatar Triathlon Federation. She also started working for the Doha Film Institute, which led to her directorial debut.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tBelow, Al-Ghanim speaks to <em>Variety<\/em> about the drive to make \u201cTheatre of Dreams\u201d after suppressing the trauma caused by her experience spearheading female soccer in Qatar. As she puts it: \u201cSomething was stirring in me, and if it didn\u2019t come out, my body was going to turn on me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=1579\">U.K. Heavyweight Doc Player Jane Ray Boards Argentina\u2019s \u2018The Nights\u2019 by Ana Bovino Ahead of ECAM Forum (EXCLUSIVE)<\/a><\/p>\n<h5>\n<strong>This film is clearly very personal. What prompted you to want to tell this story?<\/strong> <\/h5>\n<p>\n\tI worked at the Doha Film Institute and was trying to get into filmmaking in some way. The biggest catalyst came during the 2022 World Cup. A lot of international journalists, who had heard that there used to be a women\u2019s football team and were looking for athletes to interview to talk about the women\u2019s side of the game, reached out to me. I\u2019ve had incredible achievements in triathlon and have been supported to reach the world stage in that sport. But the difficulty that we face as Qatari women in sports and Arab women in sports, it\u2019s so nuanced. It has nothing to do with the fact that the institutions or the country don\u2019t support women\u2019s sports. The challenges are really more nuclear, in the family and society. So when the World Cup came up, I couldn\u2019t avoid dealing with this trauma anymore.<\/p>\n<h5>\n<strong>Tell me more<\/strong>.\t<\/h5>\n<p>\n\tThe entire city was dressed with billboards of [male] players that looked larger than life. I had to drive through them every day, and it started to stir something in me. I was feeling guilty for not doing more for the sport. The Qatar Football Association had asked me to start taking on a greater role in women\u2019s football [soccer]. But I started to feel that doing that as a manager wasn\u2019t going to help the real issue. The real change had to be a mindset change, one that would break that taboo of fear that families have. What does it mean for for women to play a sport that\u2019s mostly associated with male domination? All of that started to make me feel like something was stirring in me, and if it didn\u2019t come out, my body was going to turn on me.<\/p>\n<h5>\n<strong>There\u2019s a powerful moment in your film when you see the Qatar women\u2019s soccer team playing on TV and you hear male voices making comments in Arabic translated in the subtitles as: \u201cCongrats\u2026 we now have dykes and trannies on TV!\u201d Was this line drawn from reality?<\/strong> <\/h5>\n<p>\n\tYes, those lines were taken word-for-word from discussion forums. These forums also had a lot of supportive comments. So people were fighting [about the issue] back and forth. But when you reach that level of negativity, you know you are breaking a cultural taboo and that you are being the first to do so. So this is really a story about what it takes to be the first, and the cost that comes with breaking a barrier. You know, sometimes even if it\u2019s a win, it doesn\u2019t look like a win at the time. But someone has to be the first to break through that barrier, and it doesn\u2019t always end up in a huge triumph and a trophy and a comeback story. For the longest time, I had an issue telling my own story, because I never felt like it really ended with a win. Then I realized, well, actually it does. Because I\u2019m still here and I\u2019m still talking about it. And the act of putting myself in front of the camera, and choosing visibility rather than being intimidated, and owning that vulnerability. That is something that now I\u2019m completely owning.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=1577\">Palestine-German Project \u2018Chentian,\u2019 by \u2018Lemon Tree,\u2019 \u2018The Syrian Bride\u2019 Scribe Suha Arraf, Adds Jordan Co-Producer Arab Media Network (EXCLUSIVE)<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n<em>This interview\u00a0has been edited and condensed for clarity.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The captain of Qatar\u2019s first women\u2019s national soccer team on her Tribeca short about breaking cultural taboos tied to women playing this sport.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1582,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1456,807,822],"class_list":["post-1583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film","tag-fifa-world-cup-qatar-2022","tag-qatar","tag-tribeca-film-festival"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - 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