Polio survivors from Africa have pioneered a new extreme sport that combines skateboarding and soccer to produce Skate Soccer. Now, an award-winning South African film crew is crowd-sourcing funding via Kickstarter for a documentary film about the truly remarkable sport.

Skate Soccer won’t be featured at this year’s Paralympics, but a new documentary aims to raise the profile of the bruising new sport. This should leave you feeling a little more inspired.

Rollaball will tell the story of The Rolling Rockets, an inspiring team of Ghanaian polio survivors who are pioneering an extreme sport combination of skating and soccer.

Coach Albert K. Frimpong explains, “The first game of skate soccer was in Lagos, Nigeria, but it’s now spread throughout West Africa. We played our first international game recently against Nigeria and are hoping to host an Africa Cup of Nations next year.”

Big World Cinema’s Steven Markovitz is producing the documentary, which is currently crowdsourcing production funding via a 30-day campaign on Kickstarter, the world’s largest funding platform for creative projects.

Steven co-founded Encounters, Africa’s most prestigious documentary festival; co-produced MTV’s Best African Movie 2010, Viva Riva! He is also producing the upcoming Jambula Tree, winner of the Arte Prize for Best Feature Film Project at Durban International Film Festival 2012.

Shelley Barry, a film director and disability rights activist, is associate producer. She asks, “Who decides which sports are played at the Paralympics and what criteria are used? Skate soccer is one of the most gripping sports I’ve ever seen, so it’s a shame that its inspiring athletes won’t be represented at the games, purely because until now the players haven’t had the resources available to campaign successfully for its inclusion. We want this documentary to help change that.”

In the last week, Rollaball’s vision has received high-profile endorsements from the likes of AC Milan midfielder and Ghanaian Black Stars international Sulley Muntari; Disabled Peoples’ International; paralympian Anne Wafula Strike; The UN Special Rapporteur on Disability; World Cup Skateboarding; and South Africa’sDepartment of Women, Children and People With Disabilities.

Rollaball received production funding from The National Film and Video Foundation of South Africa, won the Puma.Creative Catalyst Award in partnership with Channel 4 Britdoc Foundation in 2011, and was selected out of 571 entries for the prestigious Sheffield Doc/Fest in 2012, but Steven says the current funding landscape means producers need to be more innovative than ever before. “Kickstarter is revolutionizing the film industry, because it allows the audience to take control of the commissioning process and fund what they want to watch.”

Rollaball is being directed by Eddie Edwards, who also helmed the award-winning sports documentary The Fight, about South African boxing champion Andile Tshongolo.

Eddie says, “When I first met the team two years ago, I knew they were something special. These guys face massive challenges off the pitch, as polio is still stigmatized in Ghana, so many of them live on the streets and beg for a living. But despite all the odds, they’re incredible athletes who deserve to be stars. They have inspired something in me and I believe they’ll inspire many others. Both on and off the field, their stories are legendary.”

To help make the completed documentary possible, visit the Rollaball Kickstarter page and make a donation. Depending on the size of your pledge, you will receive different rewards, like a digital download of the completed film; a box set of DVD’s of the producers’ previous work; Batik cloth wrap from Ghana; or even your name as an executive producer on the films’ credits and on IMDB.com. Pledge options start from as little as $10.

Eddie concludes, “If the full target of $35 000 isn’t raised, Kickstarter will refund all contributions, meaning that we won’t receive any of the funding needed to complete production, so please help us spread the word. Thank you for your support; we can’t do this without you.”