Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait
Director: Douglas Gordon, Phillippe Pareno
2006 / 90min / DCP
Following a firm formal conceit, this collaboration between Parreno and Turner Prize–winning filmmaker Gordon leads to one of the most distinctive and hypnotic sports documentaries ever made, following the every move of legendary French footballer Zinedine Zidane in real time through the length of a match between Real Madrid and Villareal on April 23, 2005. The result, given a consistent visual tone by DP Darius Khondji, illustrates how essential every second is on the pitch, and the total concentration demanded by peak performance. “We shot it on 12 35mm cameras… with very long zoom lenses. Then there were [also] two Super 16 cameras and three digital cameras and two were equipped with special lenses that were given to us by Panavision that were used by the US Army… We pushed the shoot for a year until we were able to get those two prototypes.” —Darius Khondji
Q&A with Darius Khondji on Saturday, September 19th
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