Beyond Unstoppable

DIRECTOR(s):  Korstiaan Vandiver

​PROJECT TYPE:  Narrative Short
GENRE: NA

COUNTRY:  United States

RUN TIME:  00:20:19
CAST: Zion Malwah, Karli Marie Williams, Faysal Ahmed, Adetinpo Thomas

​

​

In the heart of DeKalb County, Georgia, a young Somali refugee struggles with grief and anger after losing his father and sister back home. His mother, working two jobs to keep them afloat, longs to be present for her son but is too overworked to be the steady presence he needs. On long train rides to escape his circumstances, he glimpses a soccer field — a flash of hope in a life overshadowed by loss. When a fellow Somali teen notices him staring at the field, she invites him to join her team. As he rises to become their star player, she battles her own isolation at home with her emotionally absent father, still broken by the loss of his wife and son in Somalia. Their lives intertwine on and off the field until a fight forces her father to hear her truth about their home life. On the night of the big game, both parents show up for the children they’ve been failing, and a long-buried secret is revealed: they are each other’s lost spouses, and the teens are not just teammates but siblings. In a single, transformative moment, soccer shifts from being an escape to becoming the force that heals grief, reunites a shattered family, and makes them beyond unstoppable.