Sudani from Nigeria

Zakariya Mohammed's first film, from 2018, is set among the local football tournaments of the Malappuram region of Kerala. Teams there sign foreign players for short spells, and Majeed, who manages one of them, has brought in a Nigerian footballer. When Samuel is injured and problems with his passport surface, Majeed has to take him home. The real subject is not the matches but how these two men, and above all Majeed's mother and the neighbourhood women, treat Samuel. They share no language and no culture, but they share a way of looking after someone. The humour comes from that, and toward the end it turns into a quiet sadness. It won the National Film Award for best feature film in Malayalam, and Savithri Sreedharan received a special mention. Who it's for: viewers who like warm, local, unshowy Indian films. Who it's not for: anyone wanting the excitement of matches from a sports film; football here is only the pretext.