Winner

Winner is a story of a senseless act of violence. Adapted from Graham Greene’s 1954 short story “The Destructors,” Marianna Simnett reimagines the setting from post-war London to a surrealist modern-day football pitch. The Cock Squad, a gang of hooligan teenagers, inaugurate misfit Trevor, who quickly rises to leadership and takes them down a malevolent path, with a goal to destroy Misery the Referee’s house of red and yellow cards. The film dissects socially constructed power hierarchies, crowd psychology, and the constant pressure to perform. Through dance, the film radically transforms football’s most impassioned moments: elation and triumph, brutality and ferocity, suffering and defeat. Winner urgently prompts reflection on the chaos of our current political climate, and humanity’s irrational instinct for destruction.

Winner first came into fruition as a 5-screen video installation for Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin.