Gwendolyn Oxenham

Filmmaking Upon finishing her grant year, Oxenham and three friends decided to make a documentary film about pickup soccer games around the world. The crew took three trips, encompassing 25 countries, to shoot the film. One trip, in 2007, was to South America; another, in 2008, was to Europe and Africa; the third, in 2009, was to Asia and the Middle East.

The resulting film, Pelada, premiered in 2010 at SXSW. It was distributed internationally and shown at festivals in the U.S., where it won numerous awards. Its New York City premiere was at a bar in Manhattan's Koreatown; it received positive reviews in The New York Times and The New Yorker.

Oxenham wrote and directed, with Erit Yellen and Rebekah Fergusson, the 2015 sports documentary An Equal Playing Field. She was consulting producer for Finding Football, a 2018 original series produced for YouTube.

Writing Gwendolyn Oxenham is the author of two books and numerous articles and essays.

Finding the Game: Three Years, Twenty-five Countries and the Search for Pickup Soccer follows and expands upon the adventures chronicled in Pelada. It includes many details and stories that could not be fit into the 90-minute film. Under the Lights and in the Dark: Untold Stories of Women's Soccer, tells twelve stories about female soccer players around the world, including U.S. professional star Allie Long, who trains in an underground men's league in New York City, and Danish international star Nadia Nadim, who honed her skills after her family fled from the Taliban.

She has contributed articles to many publications, including The Atlantic, Sports Illustrated, and The New York Times.

Personal life Oxenham married Luke Boughen, co-star of Pelada. She lives in Southern California, where she teaches English and screenwriting at Orange Coast College and Laguna College of Art and Design.