After a series of pipe dream ventures go belly up, retired pro soccer player Kim Won-kang happens to visit East Timor, where he finds children playing the game barefoot on rocky pitches. Sensing a new business opportunity on finding the country doesn't have a single sporting goods store, he embarks on a scheme to get rich quick by purveying athletic shoes to the unshod youngsters. Sadly, no one there can afford to pay $60 for a pair of shoes, even on a generous installment plan, and before he knows it, he is reduced to coaching a team of ragged 10-year-olds and prospects are looking grim. Written by Palm Springs Internation Film Festival
This beautifully shot and high quality documentary tells the incredible tale of East Timor's struggle for self-government.
For 24 years East Timor's freedom fighter and Nobel Peace Prize winner José Ramos Horta campaigned to secure independence for his country, a Portuguese colony invaded by Indonesia in 1975. The Diplomat takes up Ramos Horta's story in the final dramatic stages of his long journey - the fall of Indonesia's President Suharto, the referendum to determine East Timor's future, the overwhelming vote for independence, the devastating carnage that ensued, the intervention of United Nations peacekeepers, and Ramos Horta's final triumphant return to his homeland.