Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait

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Zidane, Un Portrait Du 21e Siècle

Directed by	Douglas Gordon Philippe Parreno
Starring	Zinedine Zidane Ronaldo David Beckham
Music by	Mogwai
Distributed by	Universal International
Release date(s)	2006
Running time	91 min.
Language	French
IMDb profile

Zidane, un portrait du 21e siècle (English: Zidane, A 21st Century Portrait) is a documentary film in which the main subject is French football player Zinedine Zidane.

The film is a documentary focused purely on Zidane during the Spanish Liga Real Madrid vs. Villarreal CF game on April 23, 2005 at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium and was filmed in real time using 17 synchronized cameras. During the last minutes of that match, Zidane was sent off as a result of a brawl.^[1]

The film bears a remarkable similarity to Football As Never Before (aka "Fußball wie noch nie"), a documentary made in 1970 by acclaimed German filmmaker Hellmuth Costard about Manchester United footballer George Best. In this experimental film Costard used eight 16mm film cameras to follow Best, in real time, for the course of an entire game against Coventry City.

The film was featured at the 2006 Edinburgh International Film Festival,^[2] where the film's creators Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno were interviewed by Ranald Leask from STV.

[edit] Soundtrack

Main article: Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait (soundtrack)

Scottish rock band Mogwai provided the soundtrack to the film, at the request of Douglas Gordon. After seeing some footage of the film with a remix of "Mogwai Fear Satan" playing in the background, they agreed to do it.