"Football is the language for telling stories." There's no better way to sum up Friday at the 11mm Festival than the words of Johan Kramer. The Dutch director is being featured in a special retrospective. 22 of his works, including three long features, will be screened at the Kino Babylon cinema, and Kramer himself will be in attendance on Saturday.

Friday featured a project particularly close to the heart of festival co-director Birger Schmidt. The crowd-funded documentary "Der mit dem Ball tanzte" (Dances with the Ball) by directors  Frank Steffan und John Seidler looked at legendary Cologne midfielder Heinz Flohe, and fans of the Billy Goats turned out in numbers for the screening.

Aljoscha Pause was in attendance with the director's cut version of his homage to recently deceased Udo Lattek. The film was the product of the years of contact between the German coaching great and the filmmaker.

A lot of the films screened on Friday looked back at past heroes and games. The British documentary "The Class of '92" recalled the early years of David Beckham, Ryan Giggs and the Neville brothers at Manchester United. "Fotbollens sista proletaerer" (The Last Proletarians of Football") told the story of semi-professional IFK Göteborg, which managed the play among the elite of Europe in the 1980s. "Istanbul United" documented how fans of the Turkish metropolis' three big clubs, usually bitter enemies, came together for the Taksim Square demonstrations. And "The Days We Sang" captured the spirit of the Argentinean national team.