Listening to NPR's All Things Considered right now. Two British filmmakers are on discussing their new film "The Game of Their Lives." Except, it isn't about USA-England in 1950, it is about North Korea-Italy in 1966. It's already made and screening in various locales in the USA. It is a documentary. www.thegameoftheirlives.com This isn't brand new - been screening elsewhere for over a year - but it seems odd to make a US-focused film by the same title, unless the title will be changed for ant foreign release.
I saw a "documentary" on the documentary and it looks quite good. The Korean players returned to the scene of their victory in England. Films having the same title happens quite often. There is no copyright problems with that I've ever heard of. I'd expect the American film to keep the title worldwide despite this.
Typical English propaganda, trying to deflect attention from the fact that the USA won the real Game of their Lives!! Actually, I heard the same thing on NPR on had the same question. Appropriate titles for both films, I suppose, especially for North Korea, since it was their only win ever at the World Cup.
If the American filmmakers see any difficulity with the title financially or marketing, the title will be changed. It happens to so many films.
Hell, if Uruguay had a thriving film industry, there'd probably be a Uruguayan version about their run in the 1950 World Cup, too. And that one would have a better ending by most movie standards...
If you want to listen to the interview, you can go to the Fresh Air web page and click on the Listen to British Filmmakers Dan Gordon and Nick Bonner link. http://freshair.npr.org/day_fa.jhtml?display=day&todayDate=03/05/2003 Here's the synopsis. Gordon is a sports journalist and Bonner is a specialist on North Korea. They collaborated on the documentary The Game of Their Lives about the most shocking upset in World Cup History: It was July 19, 1966, and the scrappy underdog North Korean team beat the favored Italians, whose players were some of the finest in the world. Later the Korean team lost in the quarterfinals to Portugal. Then the players returned home and disappeared from view. After years of effort, Gordon and Bonner were given permission to enter North Korea and to interview the seven surviving members of the North Korean team. The documentary has been on tour and can be seen in Chicago, March 5th, and at the San Francisco International Asian American film Festival (Mar 8, 10 and 15th).
Here's another earlier NPR interview w/ filmmaker Nick Bonner on All Things Considered , June 22, 2002: http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1145463 The Game of their Lives will be screening in San Francisco starting tomorrow at the SF International Asian American Film Festival: http://www.naatanet.org/cgi/2003/festival.cgi?op=programFeature&id=1046&tmpl=ProgramFeature.tmpl
By strange coincidence, I woke at 3am the other morning and couldn't go back to sleep so caught the Fresh Air show that you're talking about. Just lucky I guess. Last weekend the movie was shown for free at 2 different Korean Community centers in the DC area but I couldn't make it to either. Either Futbol Mundial or Western Union Football had a piece about this movie a year or two ago, when they were filming it. The suriviving teammembers and their hosts put up a little plaque in a townhouse where the old Middlesborough stadium used to be. I too was curious about the coincidence of names.