Conference of the Birds Conference of the Birds Conference of the Birds

Conference of the Birds

Germany | 2025 | 79 min

Language: English, Turkish, German, Arabic, French

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, HFBK Hamburg, Amin Motallebzadeh Produktion, HfBK Dresden

Distribution: Shellac


Drama


Memento Mori Sports Without Sports Critics Choice Debut Matter of Mind Community


Letterboxd

Screenings:

Selected as part of FIDMarseille 2025, Conference of the Birds maps out a new area: it depicts the world of football by fragmenting the narrative.

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