Title: Heysel 85
Foreign Title:
Year: 2026
Country: Belgium/Netherlands/Germany
Language: In Dutch, French, English, and Italian with English subtitles
Director: Teodora Ana Mihai
Click here to see the cast and crew
Heysel 85 is a fictionalized telling of the real-life Heysel Stadium disaster that occurred during the European Cup Final between Liverpool and Juventus in Brussels Belgium, 1985. The film, which is directed by Teodora Ana Mihai (La civil, Traffic), intercuts real footage of the crowd disaster with exceptionally crafted scenes of the happenings and decision-making taking place in the lounges, corridors and offices of the stadium. With masterfully lit and perfectly composed 16mm cinematography, Mihai somehow both captures an aesthetic authentic to the period, while simultaneously making us feel like we’re really there. She manages to strike an incredible balance between conveying the claustrophobia and displaying the vastness of the chaos. And Heysel 85 aptly explores what humanity looks like in the face of chaos, as the fractured governance of the match resorts to shouting matches and blaming everyone but themselves. Like the sports fans in the stadium, they descend into the most tribal of human instincts.
