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Shakira during the El Dorado World Tour.
The two-hour film features hits from throughout the pop star’s career & a live album will be released in tandem.
The new movie Shakira in Concert: El Dorado World Tour is set to premiere as a one-night event in international movie theaters on Nov. 13, with a live album to be released simultaneously by Sony Music. The documentary was shot mostly during a concert in Los Angeles, with some footage from the 2018 trek’s farewell bow in Bogota, Colombia, and other performances among the more than 50 that made up the global tour.

“I think this album and this tour have been two of the things that I’m most proud of in my career,” Shakira told Billboard following a private screening of the movie in Barcelona, where she lives, on Monday (Nov. 4).

Shakira had postponed tour dates supporting her album El Dorado in 2017, due to a serious vocal cord injury. As the documentary attests, the globally acclaimed Colombian artist came back from that setback at the top of her game. She calls the two-hour movie -- the same length as each concert -- “a 360 experience” that gives fans a close-up view of her every shimmy as she sings hits from throughout her career.

Shakira performs onstage during the 2014 Billboard Music Awards at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on May 18, 2014 in Las Vegas.
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“I know that some people are going to be living that experience for the first time watching the movie, but a lot of people are also going to be reliving it with me,” Shakira says. “To be able to share it with people all over the world, people in different countries, who belong to different cultures, speak different languages, and to be able to watch it simultaneously, it just means so much after everything I went through.”

Shakira’s fans are caught on camera enraptured, screaming, crying with emotion and singing along to every word.

The concert movie also details the singer and songwriter's obsessive involvement in every detail of the production in rehearsal and backstage scenes (she describes herself as a “control freak”) and showcases her sense of humor (“I look like an Oompa Loompa,” she comments while working out one number in rehearsal). The tour marked Shakira’s first as a mother, and her two sons and her partner, footballer Gerard Piqué, make appearances in the film.

For a woman who is often referred to as a pop diva, Shakira has minimal costume changes in the show, and she is not backed by a group of dancers or surrounded by spectacular sets.

“I wanted to carry the whole weight of the show on my shoulders,” she says. “I think it was a challenge artistically, and also to have the margin to improvise, to be able to just go with the flow and use the energy in the room and respond to it …I also wanted to make it about the music, the repertoire that I’ve been able to build with the help of my audience throughout all these years, and about their energy and their reaction.”

Shakira kicked off her shows (and the movie) with “Estoy Aquí,” one of the early hits that were updated for the tour.

“We spent a couple of months just rearranging some of the songs,” she explains. “Songs that are considered classics among my audience, and we wanted to inject different life into them. Respecting their essence but being able to present them in a different package this time around.”

The set list also includes “She Wolf,” “La Bicicleta,” “Whenever, Wherever,” “Loca,” “Waka Waka,” “Antologia,” “La La La,” “La Tortura” and “Chantaje.”

“There was a lot of work behind the production of this album and this tour,” Shakira says. “I think it’s fun to look back and see what an awesome crew I had, how important teamwork was to be able to pull this off. I think that [the movie is] a different experience I’m offering my fans after so many years of doing this.”

The film, directed by Shakira and TV veteran James Merryman, is slated to be shown in more than 2,000 theaters in 60 countries, according to distributors Trafalgar Releasing. In the United States, an encore presentation on Nov. 17 will follow the premiere.

For tickets at a theater near you, go to Shakira.film.