'Fugees Family,' ESPN
by K.C. Neel -- Multichannel News, 11/16/2008 7:00:00 PM
Fugees Family may sound like a departure for sports programmer ESPN, but the documentary does fit the network's desire to find stories that move people with a sports-related component to it as well.
Fugees tells the story of young people with tragic pasts, as well as that of Luma Mufleh, an immigrant from Jordan who moved to Atlanta after graduating from Smith College in 1997. Mufleh's life was changed forever when she saw a bunch of boys of all ages playing soccer during a drive through the small town of Clarkston, Ga. It reminded her of her own childhood where soccer was an important part of her life.
She learned that the boys were refugees from war-torn countries all over the world and all shared the same passion for the game.
Clarkston, a small town of 7,500, had become an ideal place for relief agencies, which had settled an estimated 3,000 refugees in town over the past 20 years. The team decided to call themselves “the Fugees,” short for refugees. Today, “Fugees Family” is a nonprofit organization whose goal is to help refugee families transition to life in the U.S. through self-reliance and sustainability.
WICT president Benita Fitzgerald Mosley said the show's content and impact on society is worthy of the Tribute Accolade honor.
“It's a powerful story about a woman who decided to change the lives of boys who had lost everything,” Fitzgerald Mosley said.
ESPN's documentary showed how one woman's faith can change the lives of boys who had lost their own, said network spokeswoman Amy Phillips.
The genesis for the documentary came from a page one article about Mufleh and the Fugees in The New York Times, according to the show's producer, Danny Aruda. A multimillion-dollar bidding war erupted in Hollywood to win the movie rights to the Fugees' story and Mufleh pledged that any money raised would be used so that any Fugee who wanted to go to college could do so. In the interim, ESPN won Mufleh's support for the documentary, Aruda said.
Over the past three years, Mufleh has changed the lives of dozens of boys in Clarkston by giving them an outlet in life by playing soccer. She is more than just their coach; she has become a surrogate mother who uses discipline and tough love to give them focus and a feeling of pride.
“We've done quite a few inspirational stories before, but this was a very memorable one for ESPN and for me personally,” Aruda said.
Aruda and his team shot footage of the Fugees and Mufleh over a two-week period, filming soccer games, tutoring classes and practices. The show aired on Mother's Day.
The documentary was a bit of a departure from other ESPN documentaries, Aruda said, noting that previous efforts have dealt mostly with athletes. One such effort was about a high school athlete who was diagnosed with an inoperable tumor in his stomach. He recuperated enough in his senior year of high school to play one more softball game before succumbing to the illness.
“He was hugely inspirational, as was Luna,” Aruda said. “We try to find stories that other people either don't know about or know much about. They are hard to find. If you find two or three of them in a year, you're lucky.”
Right now, Aruda is working on a story about Project Healing Waters, formed by a Vietnam veteran who believed fly fishing could help heal the emotional and physical scars of war.
No related content found.
VIEW ALL GALLERIES
