Short Film written & directed by Shehzad Afzal

Watch The Full 10 Yards Here

"This page forms part of the FilmedUp Archive, documenting Shehzad Afzal’s early Scottish filmmaking period (2004–2007). Each artefact is preserved as part of a sovereign legacy initiative. These early works reflect the lived reality of independent ethnic filmmakers in Scotland — creators working outside institutional support, often overlooked, unfunded, and operating from the margins, yet producing undeniable, culturally significant cinema and creative artefacts.

The Full 10 Yards, Bo Kata, and Pendulum Drift form a coherent trilogy exploring themes of exclusion, resistance, cultural erasure, and colonial decay — a body of work shaped by independence, resilience, and cultural responsibility."

Synopsis

Jimmy Doyle, a 60 something set in his ways character, a football evangelist, a street philosopher, holds you hostage with his special brand of opinions and doctrines.

Cast

Shahid Anwar | Colin Brown

About the Project

Festival winning Best Short Film Award 2005, ‘ The Full 10 Yards’, a debut short film written and directed by Dundonian Shehzad Afzal, shot in 6 hours and edited in 9, is a contemporary semantically reflective monologue. It introduces to the world, Jimmy Doyle, a retired 60-something set-in-his-ways street philosopher and football evangelist. Amidst the blood and guts of Sunday league football, you are held hostage to his opinions and doctrines. Something sinister is brewing and Jimmy Doyle is doing all the stirring. ‘The Full 10 Yards’, is an uncompromising modern reflective insight into a mindset that is cold in the heart and bleak in the mind. The monologue pulls no punches, and there is a certain poetic balletic dance in their semantic resonance, in today’s polarised society.

Director Statement

The script for the film was written over a couple of days, the same week it had to be shot. The pressurised time scales proved to be a major factor for the way the development of the antagonist character, the anti-hero, Jimmy Doyle was penned. I wanted the script to remain focused on the message I was trying to convey, and Jimmy's character had to be real. His words had to resonate with an audience in a believable manner, so I decided to design the film as a monologue piece, with jimmy Doyle as the central and the only character that actually had lines to speak. Due to the short timescales to shoot the film, six hours to be exact, I thought the best way to get the film in the can was to concentrate on the delivery of the message. So I decided to solely focus on actor performance, making the character of Jimmy Doyle leap from the pages of the script and onto the screen. Thankfully, the actor, Colin Brown, was up to the challenge of playing one of the vilest characters ever to grace the screen. The Full 10 Yards, is an important film for me, highlighting contemporary issues without holding back. I'm glad that I had the opportunity to make it and it proved to be an enjoyable first foray in digital film making, and at the same time making inroads into ‘GREEN’ sustainable filmmaking practices.

Production Details

Developed through the Diverse Screen initiative in Edinburgh and funded by numerous bodies including BBC Scotland. A small group of enthusiastic actors and filmmakers from diverse backgrounds were developed and trained on a 13 week programme. The team worked tirelessly to bring the film to life, filmed in 6 hours and edited in 9 hours, in a small studio in Edinburgh. The results speak for themselves. The Full 10 Yards, is a film that is a testament to the power of storytelling and the importance of working in a sustainable way, with limited budgets and resources.

Awards/Nominations

The film has been praised by critics for the distinctive dialogue and minimalist visual style. It went on to be screened at film festivals, where it won the Best Short Film Award. It then went on to be screened at major art house cinemas throughout the UK from 2004 to 2007. It also has been broadcast on numerous occasions on Digital TV channels such as Community Channel and PropellerTV on SKY.

Press Article by The Courier:

Premiere for film-maker, June 23, 2005

Premiere for film-maker

TAYSIDE FILM-MAKER Shehzad Afzal had his first short film The Full Ten Yards premiered at Dundee Contemporary Arts Cinema last night.

Shehzad (36), who was born and raised in Dundee but now lives in Alyth, was one of eight filmmakers from cultural and ethnic backgrounds whose films were premiered at DCA in front of a large appreciative audience.

The eight films were lasted an average of around three minutes each.

- The Courier, June 23, 2005

Press Article by The Courier:

Film festival gets The Full Ten Yards, September 10, 2005

THE FULL 10 Yards, a short film written and directed by award-winning Dundee film-maker Shehzad Afzal, has been officially selected for the Pakistani Film, Media and Arts Festival, to be held in Glasgow.

The recent winner of the Specsavers Best Short Film award, The Full 10 Yards, which deals with the opinions and doctrines of street philosopher and football evangelist Jimmy Doyle, is the only film to be selected from a number of short films submitted from throughout the world.

The festival Pehlee Dharkan, which takes place between September 13 and 25, is a non-competitive showcase for features, short films, documentaries, music videos and experimental work from Pakistan and the British Asian community. The organisers say it’s the first such Pakistani festival to be held outside Pakistan.

Shehzad said, "It's a fantastic honour to be selected from the submitted films, representing British Asians in the UK. I have also been asked onto the panel after the screening, with other film-makers discussing the films with an audience."

The Full 10 Yards screens at the Glasgow Film Theatre, Saturday, September 17 at 2 pm.

- The Courier

Press Article by The Herald | Society:

Festival Flicks with a lick of Lollywood, September 13, 2005

The Full Ten Yards -This is a reflective short film by Dundee-based film-maker Shehzad Afzal, who wanted to explore the reasons why Asian Scots don't make it as professional footballers.

The story is told through the eyes of retired talent scout Jimmy Doyle and has already picked up the Specsavers Best Short Film award this year. The film was shot in six hours as a part of the Edinburgh Mediabase initiative Diverse Film Project.

These films are part of the British Asian Shorts section at the Glasgow Film Theatre on Saturday.

- The Herald | Society

Press Article by The Courier:

The Monday Interview: Showing racism red card, September 26, 2005

INTRODUCING Jimmy Doyle, a retired 60-something set-in-his-ways street philosopher and football evangelist. Amid the blood and guts of Sunday league football, something sinister is brewing. Jimmy Doyle is doing all the stirring...

SO GOES the introduction to The Full 10 Yards, Shehzad Afzal's short film which has been picking up plaudits up and down the country. Born and brought up in Dundee, Shehzad (36) works as an IT consultant in Perth, but devotes every spare minute to writing, shooting and directing films.

In many ways The Full 10 Yards is a brave piece of film making because, as an Asian man who is football-mad, Shehzad is exactly the kind of person his anti-hero Jimmy Doyle would hate.

For a film that's less than four minutes long, The Full 10 Yards covers some broad and controversial topics. Jimmy, an angry, racist Scotsman, watches Sunday League games because professional football has too many foreign players in it for his tastes. "I like my football white," he rails.

"The film has been taken on by the Show Racism the Red Card organisation, who plan to screen it as part of their portfolio next year," Shehzad says.

"It was screened at the Palestinian film festival Pehlee Dharkan in Glasgow, where it was shown as part of the British Asian shorts. The Full 10 Yards was completed in November 2004 so it's coming up for its first birthday."

"I would call it a reflective monologue. Jimmy Doyle is played by Colin Brown, an actor from Edinburgh I met when I was filming The Full 10 Yards."

"I support Dundee United and have been into football since I was a little boy. I try to go to as many United games as I can. Racism is one topic I'm interested in, but really what I'm interested in is all sides of human life."

The Full 10 Yards received its first screening at the Film House in Edinburgh last December and was screened at Dundee Contemporary Arts in June this year. It emerged from a film-making project run by Diverse Screen, a not-for-profit organisation in Edinburgh.

"I went on a nine-week film and video production course with them. The course culminated in the production of eight films. There were over 200 applicants and out of those 20 were selected. We were then divided into four groups of five, and each group produced two films."

"My film is just under four minutes long—not bad considering it was filmed in just under six hours and edited in nine."

Since its release, The Full 10 Yards has been screened four times in London, at the Portobello film festival and Super Shorts festival in Soho, and also won the award for best short film at the Fairport film festival in Arbroath.

Its next screening is at the Bite the Mango world cinema film festival on this week in Bradford, West Yorkshire.

Shehzad, who lives in Alyth with his wife, four-year-old son and one-year-old daughter, has been directing his creative energies towards films since an early age.

"I started making films when I was just a little kiddie. My dad gave me a Super 8 camcorder when I was about nine and it just captured my imagination. I started making movies right there and then—one was a martial arts film and the other was sci-fi."

"My dad was into films so he was a big influence on me. He distributed and screened films in Dundee and Scotland in the mid 60s—in the Plaza and the cinema on Victoria Road that is now the Little Theatre."

The Full 10 Yards is dedicated to his memory. "He was born in Pakistan and went to work as a railway signalman in Germany for a while. His brother persuaded him to come to Dundee, saying there were lots of jobs. There were, but they were all in jute mills, so my father got a job in one of those."

"He went on to open a travel agency and I grew up in central Dundee—the Hilltown, near the Law, Dens Road and Dudhope."

"Because Dundee went through the computer age I got very into technology. I'd always loved computers from an early age and had a ZX81 and a Spectrum, which were pretty much the first home computers you could get."

"I was in the ATC when I was younger and I initially wanted to be a pilot—but I don't have good enough eyesight."

"Although I loved watching and making films, becoming a film maker was not something I'd ever considered doing because the technology never existed to make cinema films."

"I went to Robert Gordon Institute of Technology in Aberdeen and got a computing qualification, then did a postgraduate in management and marketing. By 1997 the technology had moved on enough to start thinking about doing video production and editing on a personal computer. Cameras were also becoming cheaper around this time—although I still sometimes use the Super 8 my dad gave me!"

Since then, Shehzad has used his interest in film-making to explore his own cultural heritage and background.

"Between 1999 and 2004 I filmed three documentaries in Lahore, Pakistan. They were based on the Indus civilisation—although now part of Pakistan, the Indus is the river India takes its name from."

"The tribes still maintain ancient traditions in their contemporary way of life. Old traditional things like the way they give birth, the way they look at death and their marriage ceremonies have not changed in the modern age. At weddings, people arrive on bull carts like they did before there were cars. The groom arrives on a horse. It's fascinating how they have maintained their way of life."

Shehzad has also taken a look at some facets of his father's homeland people in Britain might not have been aware of.

"I also looked at transvestites there and how they live completely by their own rules, and the kite festival in Lahore. There are a lot of interesting and different facets to life."

"The first documentary was half an hour, the second one hour and the third was feature length. The second two were after I'd been on a 22-week script writing course so I knew what I was doing more."

"They haven't been shown yet, but they've been previewed at film festivals so that I can get feedback on them. I'm still doing post production so hopefully one will be screened next year."

"I've always been creative and able to visualise things well. I enjoy writing as well and I've written a lot of sci-fi stories. In fact, I'm hoping to pull them together into an anthology."

"I'm working on three feature film scripts, one of which is a thriller loosely based around my own experiences. I want to do something special with the music, perhaps making a sound track CD to go with the film. Hopefully it'll be ready for distribution next year."

"I also went on a game play course at Abertay University to learn about making computer games."

"It's no longer possible to design a game yourself. Back in the 1980s people were making hit games from home, but now the best you can do is produce a small pilot that gives developers an idea of what the finished game might look like."

"Doing all this a lot of hard work—every evening I write for at least 45 minutes and I haven't had a holiday since 2003—but I love it. In a way it's better that my day job is non-creative, because you're fresher in the evenings. Often the technical side of me will suggest a solution to a creative problem."

[Note: Original print article erroneously printed 'Palestinian' instead of 'Pakistani Film Festival'])

- Jack McKeown, The Courier

Industry Article by Roughcuts:

Rough Cuts Magazine (Apr–May, 2007) — coverage of The Full 10 Yards at Rushes Digital Film Festival, Apr-May, 2007

This article marked Afzal’s emergence in Scotland’s digital film movement.

Film Festival & Theatrical Release Coverage - DCA Cinema 2005 (Dundee) - Screening of The Full 10 Yards (as part of the Diverse Screen Showcase):

DCA Cinema, June 22, 2005

Film Festival & Theatrical Release Coverage - Portobello Film Festival 2005 (London) - Screening of The Full 10 Yards:

Portobello Film Festival, August 4-21, 2005

Film Festival & Theatrical Release Coverage - Lemon Tree 2005 (Aberdeen) - Screening of The Full 10 Yards:

Lemon Tree - Interculural Film Showcase, August 11, 2005

Film Festival & Theatrical Release Coverage - Talent Circle, Super Shorts 2005 (London) - Screening of The Full 10 Yards:

Talent Circle - Super Shorts, September 8, 2005

Film Festival & Theatrical Release Coverage - Pehlee Dharkan, Pakistani Film Festival 2005 (Glasgow) - Screening of The Full 10 Yards:

Pehlee Dharkan, Pakistani Film Festival 2005, September 17, 2005

Film Festival & Theatrical Release Coverage - Bite The Mango Film Festival 2005 (Bradford) - Screening of The Full 10 Yards - Slices of Mango 2:

Bite The Mango Film Festival 2005, September 25, 2005

Film Festival & Theatrical Release Coverage - Edinburgh Filmhouse, Pehlee Dharkan 2006 (Edinburgh) - Screening of The Full 10 Yards - British Asian Diaspora Shorts:

Edinburgh Filmhouse, Pehlee Dharkan 2006, February 25, 2006

Film Festival & Theatrical Release Coverage - Kino International Short Film Festival 2006 (Manchester) - Screening of The Full 10 Yards - BlueFire Shorts:

Kino International Short Film Festival, BlueFire Shorts 2006, March 1, 2006

Film Festival & Theatrical Release Coverage - (Article of screening appeared in Roughcuts Magazine, Feb-Mar, 2007) Dundee DCA Shorts Showcase 2007 (Dundee) - Screening of The Full 10 Yards:

Dundee DCA Shorts Showcase 2007, February 25, 2007

Film Reviews & Quotes

"In a sense, Shehzad Afzal’s pointed take on racism and Sunday-league football isn’t very funny. Except, it is very funny – and worryingly enough, familiar. Afzal created the character of the bigoted Jimmy Doyle over only a few days, working to tight deadlines and no budget, constraints that have served to enliven this small gem", Mitch Miller, Rushes Festival / The Drouth Magazine. - Mitch Miller

Broadcast History

Community Channel (UK Terrestrial TV) — National broadcast of The Full 10 Yards during its 2004–2007 festival run.

Broadcast Formats

THE FULL 10 YARDS is available now to be broadcast at Film Festivals, Cinemas and TV on the following formats: DVD, MiniDV and BetaSP.

Sales

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