《Hey, hey, hey, football team》: Following five years of filming and leaving Xinjiang

 A movie cannot be filmed for the time being, but what the children are most worried about is whether they can continue playing football.《Hey hey hey, football team》the creation of this sentence changed direction.On September 29, the film was screened exclusively for fans in Beijing. Producer Su Yiyan and director Liu Yiran talked to the audience about their five-year filming experience, and how this group of visually impaired teenagers in Xinjiang went from first contacting football to competing in national competitions.

The story begins at the Special Education School in Yarkand County, Kashgar Prefecture, Xinjiang.The project, led by Tianshan Film Studio, was initially planned to be made into a feature film, with professional actors invited to star in it and teenagers selected from schools to participate in the filming.In order to familiarize children with blind football, the crew invited coaches during the preparatory stage and used the summer vacation to arrange enlightenment training.The movie has not officially started filming yet, and this sport has already entered their lives.

Then, financial issues put the feature film on hold.Gong Yingtian, the original feature film director, recalled that the children still insisted on training and had fallen in love with football.The suspension of filming plans did not make their interest in the stadium disappear.For adults, the project can be postponed; for teenagers who have just gained new experiences, training time and cooperation between teammates have become something worth looking forward to every day.

The children repeatedly asked Su Yiyan about the possibility of continuing to play football, and she decided to keep the camera here.Su Yiyan teamed up with Li Zhiwei and Liu Yiran to change the original plan into a documentary. They raised their own funds and collected travel expenses to shoot back and forth to Xinjiang.There was no pre-written ending, and it was difficult to judge in advance how far the team could go. The crew followed real life and the filming lasted for five years.

The word "Hey, Hey, Hey" in the film's title comes from the Spanish password “Voy” used on the blind football field, which means "I'm here".Players use sounds to indicate their positions, identify directions, and complete coordination.This voice is not only a communication tool during the game, but also gradually takes on the meaning of encouraging each other.Once the audience understands the origin of the name, they can more quickly enter the young people's sports experience: the information on the court is heard and judged in different ways.

Starting from scratch is not an easy process.This group of teenagers had almost no systematic exposure to blind football before, and preparations for the film gave them access to coaches and professional venues for the first time.Skills, rules, and tacit understanding must be established through training.The camera needs to wait for small changes to occur in order to record how a person dares to express himself, how he trusts his teammates, and how a team gradually develops its own rhythm.

Liu Zhenran's filming attitude for the film was to look at these children with a straight face and not wrap their daily lives with sadness.Over several years of getting along, the creators ate and lived together with the teenagers, and saw them browsing their phones, listening to music, and playing games, and also saw their desire to independently complete things within their capabilities.The lens must retain these ordinary lives so that the audience can get to know specific people and avoid compressing all experiences into an abstract label.

Real support also comes on a day-to-day basis.Technology, social workers, volunteers and other forces help teenagers to participate in social life more smoothly, while professional training opens up new space for them.These conditions do not preempt the center of the story, but they determine whether the child has the opportunity to continue trying.The documentary puts growth back into such an environment, and every improvement on the court has a clear path.

In August 2024, the Xinjiang Disabled Persons' Federation used this group of teenagers as a team to form Xinjiang's first blind football team.What started as training for film preparations has gradually developed into a team capable of participating in official competitions.The gap in local blind football has been filled, and the teenagers have gained a clearer goal, moving from the school's training ground to a larger playing space.

The school itself has also changed over the past five years.When filming began, the Shache County Special Education School only had nine years of compulsory education. After graduation, most of the team members needed to go to Xinjiang Special Education Vocational Technical School to continue their studies.In 2025, the school applies to obtain high school qualifications.The film documents growth, thus encompassing both changes in athletic ability and improvements in educational conditions, and future options.

Today, this team has traveled beyond Xinjiang and participated in events such as the National Blind Football Championship and the National Paralympics.The protagonist of the film, Bilal Yassen, entered the reserve team of the National Blind Football Team due to his strength and prepared for the Asian Paralympic Games as a substitute player.This progress has left a clear ending point for the long-term follow-up: those who just started learning at the beginning can already move on to a higher level of competition.

But competitive performance does not cover other parts of growth.The introverted and silent teenager became more willing to speak, more daring to face competition, and more able to express his wishes.Such changes cannot be fully explained by one victory or defeat.The length of the documentary gives the audience the opportunity to put their current confidence and initial restraint together and understand how training slowly enters a person's character and life.

The exchange after the screening in Beijing also touched on the real situation of documentary films.《Hey, hey, hey, football team》Currently, we mainly rely on the main creators to organize screenings on their own, and regular film schedules are still limited.Next, the team plans to enter more cities through screenings and screenings.Whether the film can be seen by more people needs to be promoted through specific screenings, and these screenings will also bring the experiences of the teenagers to new audiences.

From a suspended feature film to a documentary film that lasted for five years, this project left behind the process of mutual influence between creation and life.The training started with film preparations, and the teenagers' persistence allowed the film to find a new shape.The question about whether % can still play football finally received a continuous response: they continue to train, continue to participate in games, and continue to have their own next step.