YAZIDS BRÜDER

Everyone wants a brother like Yazid. The whole of the French nation is united in front of their television sets watching the 2004 Football World Cup. In La Castellane, one of Marseille’s most infamous suburbs, all the day-to-day problems can be forgotten for a short while. Here, every child wants to be a big football star when they grow up and the grocer Monsieur Kanes is willing to help out everyone who wants to escape from this “ghettoised” neighbourhood. Twenty-two year old Fady was on the way to making it. We can feel his pain and disillusionment as all his dreams are shattered. Thirteen-year-old Christopher might well still make it, but his future is still uncertain. So far, only Yazid has succeeded. Yazid is Zinédine Zidane, the world’s best football player.

Football is King and for the children and grandchildren of immigrants let down by French society, football often seems the only way to escape their already mapped out destinies. More relevant than ever after the riots in France last autumn, Yazid’s Brothers is an empathic and playful film about the hopes and aspirations of young people on the field, and about their sense of disillusionment when their dreams fall apart.