Zidane: A 21st century portrait - Friday 6 June

Friday 6 June 11:00pm

Location: Hackney Picture House, 270 Mare Street, London, E8 1HE

Running time: 90 minutes

Directors: Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno

Turner Prize-winning artist and filmmaker Douglas Gordon and French artist Philippe Parreno teamed up to create a work glorious in its simplicity.

The film was made by training 17 cameras, under the supervision of acclaimed cinematographer Darius Khondji, solely on football superstar Zinedine Zidane over the course of a single match between Real Madrid and Villareal FC, to tell an intimate and intense kind of football story entirely from Zidane’s perspective.

The fixture in the Spanish league takes place on 23 April 2005 in the vast Estadio Santiago Bernabéu. As the game starts, we find ourselves on the pitch. We view and study him, on and off the ball. We see him focused and pacing. And we see him paradoxically exposed to tens of thousands of spectators at the ground and millions watching on TV and yet utterly alone. The remarkable result is a study of a man in the workplace, an ode to the loneliness of the athlete and the poise and resilience of the human body.



See the other films and events that are part of our Sidelines film festival