"They can’t see you. They don’t think you exist, so play as if you didn’t exist. Be shadows, be everywhere before they realise you’re there." As if inspired by this advice from an interim coach during a video briefing session, Amin Motallebzadeh treats us to a highly original and mesmerising immersion into the world of professional football with his debut feature film Conference of The Birds, which was unveiled in a world premiere within the 36th FIDMarseille’s international competition.

It's a hybrid and particularly astute film in which the German-Iranian director scrambles space-time reference points (it’s impossible to guess which European country or city the story’s taking place in, despite several references to the English Premier League) with wonderful visual style, and blurs the line between fiction and documentary, distorting everyday elements (the bus for the players, the stadium corridors, press conferences, transfer discussions, etc.) by injecting spirituality and mystery into the highly coded world of football, which the 7th art often struggles to depict in fiction.

The narrative springboard which propels us into this parallel universe is the death of the team’s coach, which plunges the entire club - ranging from interim coach (Enes Yurdaün) to club owner (Hicham El Madkouri) by way of the chairman (Wigger Bierma) and the vice-chairman (Dieter Bernkopf) - into sadness and uncertainty. In a crepuscular atmosphere of tributes (both religious and professional) to the deceased, their work continues. They negotiate incredibly technical clauses in a new player’s contract (Souleymane Sylla) in the confidential space of an opulent, deserted bar; they respond (via a translator) as best they can to journalists’ questions over the as yet unknown identity of the coach’s successor; an injured player shares his locker room memories; the team (mere figures in the film) get ready for their next match; the prospective coach (Alexander Simon) and his wife (Catherine Seifert) are on stand-by, surrounded by cardboard moving boxes… Everyone is in a subtly repetitive limbo of grief ("it’s very painful, but it’s part of being human").

Skilfully dropping clues while placing the audience in the position of an observer attempting to decipher the impossible, the director alternates intimate sequences with highly realistic details on modern-day professional football (the name of PSG’s chairman actually appears on a telephone). By foregrounding the softness, proximity and suggestive power of photography (which comes courtesy of Tom Otte) and music (Nima Khaste), Amin Motallebzadeh lifts the veil on the loneliness-infused underbelly of football, where beliefs and spirituality maintain an unexpected presence, like shields in the darkness ("I’m awake, I’m in the world, I’m no longer waiting for assurances, protection or promises"), echoing the Persian Sufi poem to which this bewitching film’s title explicitly references.

Conference of The Birds was produced by Germany’s Tamtam Film and by the director himself. Shellac are steering world sales.