The 9th annual Kicking + Screening Soccer Film Festival in New York ran June 6-9, 2017, at Scandinavia House in midtown Manhattan.

The theme of K+S New York 2017 was “No Boundaries,” which meshed perfectly with what we felt was one of the most powerful aspects of the beautiful game — the ability to tear down walls and remove barriers of all kinds. Our four feature films delved into this theme, exploring how soccer can break through boundaries geographical, psychological, political, and fanatical.

From the outsized story of Iceland’s underdog rise to glory to the transformation of the French national team over the past few decades, from a dark comedy about an Israeli-Palestinian resolution to a hilarious pilgrimage to watch Celtic play in Glasgow, the films at K+S New York 2017 showed us that the game affects us every day in ways both big and small.

The films were all amazing. The panels -- from Youri Djorkaeff's stories about President Jacques Chirac, to Dennis Crowley's calls to remake the domestic soccer system, to the Cooligans’ jokes -- provided the kind of full experience K+S festivals always promise.

Most importantly, the post-event parties gave everyone a chance to meet new soccer people and reconnect with old soccer friends.

The 2017 Golden Whistle was awarded to Inside a Volcano: The Rise of Icelandic Football. Definitely a worthy winner. 

In the end, though, we felt like the winners, as we do every year. It was a real honor to organize and put on K+S in New York and we were, as always, blown away by the support we received from the Big Apple soccer community.  Thank you to everyone who came out to a film or told a friend about K+S or simply followed along.

Yours in soccer,
Rachel, Greg, Oliver + the entire K+S team