Ultras
(Sweden/Denmark/Finland, 90 min.)
Dir. Ragnhild Ekner
Programme: Nightvision (North American premiere)
“Ultras dream of freedom.”
Football, or soccer as it is more commonly known in North America, is a global mega-phenomenon. As a televised event, audience numbers surpass even those for the Olympic Games. Roughly five billion people, or more than half of the world’s population, watched the last World Cup in 2022.
Anyone who’s seen a game is familiar with the tremendous solidarity of the superfans in the stands. These proud “ultras” (a term that originated in Italy) chant, sing, drum, unfurl massive banners, and set off flares. Their energy is infectious and adds a positive charge to both the game and the stadium experience. From the ultras’ perspective, their support is integral to the action on the field.
Although ultras are some of the world’s most devoted sports fans, they can also be the most notorious. Their extraordinarily positive collective power sometimes turns ugly. Riots are not uncommon. Such a stark contrast may seem nonsensical but in Ultras, director Ragnhild Ekner reveals how the two concepts are not mutually exclusive.
Ekner skillfully crafts a complex and immersive experience that is teeming with insight from many of these superfans. Epic in scope and subtly rigorous, Ultras is ambitious: shot over seven years, spanning eight countries and four continents, the film successfully captures, and distinctly illuminates, an insider’s view of this culture. The filmmaker’s observational approach and her painstaking methodology give the viewer a rich experience of the multifaceted nature of this fanatical fandom.
Ultras opens with a brilliantly energetic montage, intercutting shots panning across jubilant fans in action in the stands. It’s obviously a compendium of stadiums. Visually, it does not stop on any one person and the overriding voice over is a mix of different individuals and their experiences.
But then the filmmaker’s voice permeates, and she announces the agenda here: this film will not focus on specific faces within these crowds. It’s not about that. This is a crucial moment in the opening of the film, a self reflexive and personal note from the filmmaker. She is no voice of authority; she is a participant who invites the viewer in. Ultras is about a greater sense of liberation that occurs when one loses oneself in the crowd.
Ekner presents an all-encompassing collective experience by panning through crowds of fans around the globe, offering a vérité essay about the community that unites them. The ultras speaking in voiceover may be individuals, each sharing personal histories, but their insights and confessions are familiar. At various points in the film, someone will relate a personal story of healing as a result of membership in their ultras community – one woman in Argentina found comfort in the group after her son died, while a man in Poland talks of how he used to be a much angrier person before he had this outlet. In Indonesia, women who formed their own ultras community find strength and empowerment within a patriarchal society that keeps them down.
The film’s deceptively simple strategy keeps it moving at a brisk pace. Ekner structures the film in sections according to country but has the voices cross these formal boundaries and cultural lines in a show of solidarity and union. Through the editing, she takes seemingly ordinary crowd shots and accentuates the camera movement across them, and the internal movements within the frame, to give the film its intoxicating ebb and flow. She weaves a shapeshifting journey: participation in the ultras is at once a show of defiance against authority, an escape from reality, and a respite from loneliness.
Male voices remind us that this is a macho culture. One man from Poland asserts how their actions are a fight against authority, even if indirectly. The fact that the voices are disembodied once again creates a blend that defies borders and underscores the universality. This is when Ekner is able to create insight into how the collective force of this crowd can migrate from the inside to the outside of the stadium to become a social phenomenon. People in Morocco speak of the frustrations of living in a society filled with such extreme poverty, while in Egypt a man describes how the organizational skills that the ultras inherently develop have been useful in their protests against the government.
Ultras builds an affecting portrait of a universal need across all peoples, especially the disenfranchised, to not only escape their realities but to feel like they are part of something bigger, something more powerful, perhaps something life changing. That need for escape can lead to an expression and ultimately a release of collective frustration. People in these ultras communities find meaning in life when there is no hope and as this documentary portrait makes clear, sometimes their need to defy that helplessness, to escape reality and turn desperation into optimism is relatable. Ultras provides an unforgettable insight into the power of the people when the people take power into their own hands.
Ultras screens at Hot Docs 2025.
Get more coverage from this year’s festival here.
