Risk Field: Navigating Health Through Soccer

Every winter, 12–15 students in the Film Studies “Group Documentary” class collaborate to write, shoot and edit a short film on a chosen topic. The annual screening of this finished project has become an enormously popular spotlight on student work at Dartmouth. Past classes have picked their subjects from locals in the community: bear-behavior expert Ben Kilham, comedian and sex-educator Cindy Pierce and Gospel Choir maestro Walt Cunningham. This year, the group chose to profile Grassroot Soccer.

Grassroot Soccer, a nonprofit organization that stretches from Norwich, Vermont to Southern Africa, is changing the game by using soccer as a universal language. With soccer as the hook, the organization provides health education and combats gender norms on the field in order to empower at-risk adolescents in all aspects of their lives.

This presentation will include a screening of the documentary (approximately 25 minutes), followed by a short “Making of” video and a discussion with the student filmmakers.