THE OTHER CHELSEA

Donetsk is the coal-mining area of Ukraine. Here most people work for low wages in the run-down mines, while others make a lot of money. No matter which side of the social divide you are on, coming from Donetsk you will almost certainly be an opponent of the Orange Revolution and a fan of the local football team, Shakhtar Donetsk.

Billionaire Rinat Akhmetov invests heavily in the club, which is becoming a major European force during the season followed by the film. However, this sporting success funded by an Oligarch fortune only seems to highlight the wider social and political stagnation of the region. Off the pitch, the outlook appears bleak…

Coal miner Sasha (55) has been a fan of the team for 50 years. He sits among the common people on the terraces in the stadium, while local politician and businessman Kolya (30) has his place high above his head in the VIP box. Both are witnesses to Shakhtar’s breakthrough on the international stage during the 2009 UEFA-Cup. Shakhtar serves as an example of the connection between politics, business and sport. Coal miner Sasha is critical about the new elite in his country, he and his colleagues at the mine regret the Soviet times and they cannot cope with the new capitalism. However, the fact that oligarch Akhmetov is a patriot, and invests in the team of his hometown rather than in a big foreign club, means a lot to him.

THE OTHER CHELSEA features the discordant worlds of coal miners and oligarchs, and how both of them meet: in the football stadium of Shakhtar Donetsk.

Jakob Preuss, born in 1975 and based in Berlin, studied law in Cologne and Paris and European Studies in Warsaw. He performed his civilian national service in Nizhny-Novgorod, Russia, and worked in Moscow after his studies. Since 2002 – alongside his activities as filmmaker – he has regulary worked as a freelance consultant / observer for international organisations in the field of elections. He was employed as an expert on the CIS for the human rights organization REPORTS WITHOUT BORDERS in 2007 / 2008. Since 2007, he has also worked for the BERLINALE section PANORAMA during the festival. Jakob is fluent in Russian, English, French and Spanish. THE OTHER CHELSEA is his feature-length debut film.

Director
Jakob Preuss

Cinematography
Eugen Schlegel
Pavel Kazantsev
Roman Yelensky
Maxim Kuphal-Potapenko
Philipp Gromov

Editors
Felix Korfmann
Markus CM Schmidt
Philipp Gromov
Lena Rem

Sound
Oleg Goloveshkin

Producer
Stefan Kloos

Production Managers
Tina Naber
Caroline Kirberg

Music
Dominik Sprungala

Sounddesign & Re-recording Mixing
Raimund von Scheibner

Animation
Stephan Flint Müller

Production
Kloos & Co. Medien in collaboration with ZDF „Das kleine Fernsehspiel

Commissioning Editor ZDF / Das kleine Fernsehspiel
Milena Bonse

Sundance Documentary Film Program
Robert Bosch Stiftung
Creative Europe Programme – MEDIA of the European Union

Filmfestival Max Ophüls Preis 2011
„Best Documentary“

First Steps Award 2011
„Best Documentary“

Grimme Award 2012
Winner in the category Information and Culture / Special

World Premiere
IDFA – International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam 2010, The Netherlands

Further Festivals (Selection)
International Film Festival Triest 2011, Italy
Filmfestival Max Ophüls Preis 2011, Saarbrücken, Germany
One World Film Festival 2011, Prague, Czech Republic
DocuDays Kiew 2011, Ukraine
Zürich Film Festival 2011, Switzerland
Zagreb Film Festival 2011, Croatia
DOK.fest München Internationales Dokumentarfilmfestival 2011, Germany
Planete Doc Review 2011, Warsaw, Poland
Achtung Berlin Filmfestival 2011, Germany