The film takes its title from a poem by the Persian Sufi poet Farid al-Din Attar, in which birds from around the world set out in search of their king. At the end of their journey, they discover that the king they seek is none other than their own collective reflection. The film echoes this quest in its portrait of a football club after the death of its head coach, Dené. Attempts to fill the void he leaves behind come to nothing: the signing of a new coach falls through, the players fail to turn up for a crucial match, and those around the club are drawn into increasingly surreal encounters. Usually associated with masculinity and spectacle, the world of football here becomes a space for grief and vulnerability. Conference of the Birds is an atmospheric, hypnotic and enigmatic drama that captures a world suspended in uncertainty. Eschewing the conventions of both sports films and traditional storytelling, it unfolds as a meditation on absence, identity and collective disarray.
