Conference of the Birds
Germany | 2025 | 80 min
Language: English, Turkish, German, Arabic, French
Subtitles: English
Suitable for audiences aged 7 and above
Director(s): Amin Motallebzadeh
Script: Amin Motallebzadeh
Cast: Enes Yurdayün, Lucca Pawlik, Bülent Özdemir, Hicham El Madkouri, Wigger Bierma, Dieter Bernkopf, Willy Hans, Souleymane Sylla, Steven Sowah, Alexander Simon, Marten Quirin Korte, Hannah Schutsch, Catherine Seifert
Production: Tamtam Film, Amin Motallebzadeh Produktion
Distribution: Shellac
Drama
Memento Mori Sports Without Sports Critics Choice Debut Matter of Mind Community
Screenings:
A coach of a football club suddenly dies, and the team succumbs to silent chaos. First-time director Amin Motallebzadeh is more interested in describing the spiritual atmosphere of the club instead of creating a clear-cut sports drama. Faces, the different textures of light, versatile off-frame sounds, and details of human bodies are all essential building blocks of this tightly framed film, where people are entrapped by their confused feelings while the outside world keeps on living.
Motallebzadeh’s role models are also easy to locate: he creates a similar, broken whole from shards of narrative and fragmentary moments, much like Angela Schanelec, and he has certainly learned a lot about capturing male bodies in movement from Claire Denis.
Valtteri Lepistö
