THE STORY – Heysel Stadium, Brussels, May 1985. Thirty-year-old Marie, daughter and press attaché of the mayor of Brussels, attends the European Cup Final between Juventus and Liverpool FC with her parents. Also present is 31-year-old Luca Rossi, a journalist covering the match for Italian TV, accompanied by family who have arrived from Italy. Before kick-off, hooligans go on the rampage. Dozens of people die; chaos ensues. While continuing to report, Luca searches for his family. And Marie has to step in for her father, who, drunk and overwhelmed, is no longer capable of taking command. The politicians and police are faced with the question: cancel the match or let it go on? As fear takes hold that stopping the game could escalate the situation further, a questionable decision takes shape.
THE CAST – Violet Braeckman, Matteo Simoni, Josse De Pauw, Fabrizio Rongione & Paolo Calabresi
THE TEAM – Teodora Ana Mihai (Director/Writer), Lode Desmet & Isabelle Darras (Writers)
THE RUNNING TIME – 91 Minutes
The Heysel Stadium disaster was a dark day for football. That day, thirty-nine football fans died in the Belgian stadium during the 1985 European Cup final between Liverpool and Juventus. It’s a tragedy that isn’t discussed as much in the football community as others; it’s sometimes referred to as English football’s forgotten tragedy. “Heysel 85” documents the lead-up and aftermath of the shocking disaster in an intense and distressing manner. It never shies away from showing the horror of the day, but highlights the tragic losses and the horrendous behaviour of the Liverpool fans.
Documentary footage of the 1985 European Cup final is shown as the film begins, with travelling fans from England and Italy arriving at the Heysel Stadium in Brussels. The two teams are Liverpool, one of the most renowned and successful clubs in English football, and Juventus, the Italian football giant. The film steps into fiction as it cuts to a wide-screen shot of journalist Luca Rossi (Matteo Simoni) interviewing his Italian family, who’ve travelled to attend the match. Inside the stadium, the mayor of Brussels, Marc Dumont (Josse De Pauw), and his daughter, Marie (Violet Braeckman), acting as his press attaché, prepare for the football match by welcoming their esteemed guests before kick-off.
English football fans have always had a bad reputation for hooliganism, often inciting violence against fans of opposition teams. With the importance of the cup final and the rivalry between English and Italian fans, there was always the chance of things kicking off. About an hour before kick-off, Liverpool fans crossed into Heysel Stadium’s neutral zone, attacking the Juventus fans who desperately tried to escape the oncoming barrage of crazed hooligans. This caused a devastating crush that saw countless Juventus fans trampled on and pinned against the stand’s concrete barrier. The chaos spills into the stadium as injured people stumble in seeking medical attention. Marie is forced to step up and orchestrate their response with the police and key figures, should the match be played or cancelled? Fears that the stadium would become a full-on warzone led some to believe that playing, despite the tragedy, could be the best way to protect the tens of thousands of fans still inside.
The film chronicles the behind-the-scenes of the Heysel Stadium disaster as we follow characters who show different sides to the chaos. Marie is undoubtedly the film’s protagonist; she is the liaison between almost every faction involved. She is constantly running around trying to get information to the right people to help evade any further disaster. Her character goes through a lot, but holds it together as she quickly realises the importance of her role, with her father neglecting his duties after getting drunk and panicking. Marie is played by Belgian actress Violet Braeckman, delivering a seriously impressive and composed performance. She is endlessly watchable, as one becomes transfixed by her calm amid all the chaos. Useless, soulless corporate types surround Marie, and politicians who only care about money and their image, so acting amongst such a masculine, unwelcoming crowd makes Marie’s character all the more powerful.
Most of the film is shot handheld, following characters as they rush around the stadium, figuring out what’s happened and how to proceed. It’s almost as if the film is guiding the viewer through the tragedy to make us better understand our humanity. Seeing the shocking images of people with broken limbs, covered in blood, and the sadly deceased is bad enough, but the screams of the survivors are just as horrendous. It’s a gripping experience. “Heysel 85” straddles the line between fiction and non-fiction, using both mediums as tools to tell this story. This makes sense given Teodora Ana Mihai’s documentary background, as seen in her first film, “Waiting for August.” The film is a technical marvel, capturing the era perfectly with 16mm film; the graininess of the shots pairs well with the fuzzy, old documentary footage. The film’s intensity is largely derived from continuous long takes, which ground the audience and place them directly in the action. It almost feels like a war film at times.
For football fans, it’s an enticing watch to see the ins and outs of the protocols and procedures required to put on a match of this magnitude. It takes an army to organise an event like this that runs smoothly, and the Heysel Stadium disaster highlights how incompetence can lead to severe consequences. The football match itself, which Juventus eventually won 1-0, is glossed over, as the film isn’t interested in the players or the football but in the warzone-like drama that unfolded inside the stadium. It’s not a sports drama at all.
Teodora Ana Mihai brings the tragedy of the Heysel Stadium disaster back to life, exploring the incompetence of the men in charge and the extreme toll it took. The archive material and the film’s beautifully grainy 16mm shots are perfectly aligned and effortlessly capture the period. It’s a harrowing film that boasts excellent performances, silky filmmaking, and a gripping real-life story that is often forgotten amongst football’s biggest and saddest tragedies.
