Moon
By Kurdwin Ayub
2024 | 93 min | Drama
MOND is a gripping thriller about women’s oppression. A fighter in Jordan confronts power, isolation and the fantasy of rescue head-on.
Kurdwin Ayub
DirectorKurdwin Ayub, born in Dohuk, Iraq, in 1990, is a Kurdish-Austrian director and screenwriter. Her family fled to Austria in the 1990s, where she grew up in Vienna. She studied painting and experimental animation film at the University of Applied Arts and performative art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna.
Her first feature-length film PARADISE! PARADISE! (2016) is a documentary in which she accompanies her father on a visit to his Kurdish homeland. The film won the award for best cinematography at the Diagonale 2016.
Ayub made her feature film debut with “Sonne” (2022). The film tells the story of three girls who shoot a music video in burqas and receive unexpected attention as a result. “Sonne” premiered at the 2022 Berlin International Film Festival and won the GWFF Award for Best First Feature.
Her latest film, “Mond” (2024), is about a former martial artist who travels to Jordan to train the daughters of a wealthy family. The film premiered at the Locarno Film Festival 2024, where it received the Special Jury Prize.
In addition to her feature films, Ayub has made several short films, including “Boomerang” (2018), which won the Jury Prize for Best Short Film at the Max Ophüls Film Festival 2019.
Films
Paradies! Paradies!
By Kurdwin Ayub
2016 | 78 min | Documentary
Kurdwin Ayub, a member of the European Film Academy, tries to find out why his father falls into euphoria at the very mention of Kurdistan.
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Paradies! Paradies!
2016 | 78 min | Documentary
The Kurdish Kurdwin grew up in Austria and takes a critical view of this visit "home". Filming, she tries to find out why her father is euphoric about Kurdistan. In 1991 Kurdwin Ayub fled Iraq with her family to Austria. Almost 25 years later she accompanies her father on a journey to his former home. While he contemplates a returning to live permanently in Iraq, Kurdwin and her cousins feel like strangers in their own homeland. An intimate, sometimes bizarre and sobering portrait of the generation ...
Walking on a Thin Line
2015 | 55 min | Documentary
When fighting, Ibo seems anything but unfocused. For half a year Vedran Kos accompanies his exhausting preparations for the first amateur boxing match and talks about the emotional but also pragmatic hurdles of the sport. Today the time has come, the day of the fight that will decide everything. It’s easy to say the most important match is always the next one – but for Ibo at this instant it is really true that nothing else counts. Depending on the outcome, he feels the threat of megalomania or ...
Solo - Out of a Dream
2014 | 90 min | Documentary
Twenty years ago, at the age of 11, Leonardo wanted to become a professional soccer player to escape the poverty and violence of the slums of Rio de Janeiro. The film that was made at the time miraculously made his dream come true. In 1994, 11 year-old Leonardo, was portrayed in the Award-winning documentary Solo –the law of the favela. His dream was to become soccer players, to escape the poverty and violence of the slum in Rio de Janeiro. As a result of the film, Leonardo was invited to join ...
Jan - Challenge at the Net
2013 | 94 min | Documentary
Can Jan reconcile his family ambitions and tough training regimen with a “normal” adolescence? Huge fans of Roger Federer, the Guler family dreams of boosting their youngest son Jan on top of the world of tennis. As classmates start an apprenticeship or move on to high school, Jan starts professional tennis camp. Over a period of five years, we witness up close how the Guler family deals with the sport, family and social demands of a professional tennis career. We watch as teenager Jan develops ...
Meanwhile in Mamelodi
2011 | 74 min | Documentary
Father Steven puts all his energy into his small kiosk in the middle of the township. Meanwhile, daughter "Moskito" struggles through the turmoil of puberty and dreams of a career as a professional soccer player or paleontologist. A family portrait, away from the flashy World Cup broadcasts, about two South African generations, their dreams, disappointments and realities. "One-thousand-watt personalities combined with beautiful lensing make MEANWHILE IN MAMELODI a star thesis project from tyro ...
Liberation
2017 | 24 min | Shorts
Jane is a boxer preparing for the championship of her life. She wants to win but it's difficult to keep focus when her girlfriend Tanja wants to start a family. When Jane meets Karoline new emotions arises and she decides to leave Tanja. The training escalates, and suddenly Jane seems to be unable to get the firm foothold that she so desperately needs in both her life and in her career.
Babyboy
2023 | 48 min | Drama
Vincent is 16 and wants to do everything a boy is supposed to do to become a man: move out of his mother's house, be accepted by the boys on his football team and sleep with his girlfriend. But between his first love and the separation of his parents lies Vincent's longing to arrive and feel at home again. In the oft-told maze of adolescence, there have always been questions about gender roles that need to be addressed or overturned. What is often neglected are equally relevant prerequisites for ...
Heiko's World
2021 | 118 min | Independent
Heiko's mother Belinda suffers from keratoconus, a rare eye disease. She could soon go completely blind. Belinda's eyesight could be saved with an expensive operation - but the insurance company won't cover it. For Heiko, this marks the beginning of an odyssey through the Berlin bar world: in order to raise the money for his mother's operation, he faces the best dart players in the city, at first reluctantly, but then with growing ambition, euro after euro. They, however, pursue completely different ...
Gate #5
2011 | 84 min | Documentary
Through eloquent descriptions of former truck drivers, El Habre presents The Lebanon of the 1960s to the present day. They were once young, thrived on adventure and had choices. In the 1960s and 70s thousands of young Lebanese men left their villages and made a new life in Beirut. Truck driving became a lifestyle, income, money, and a vibrant urban life.
Hugo Koblet - The Charming Cyclist
2014 | 97 min | Documentary
The well-drafted docudrama HUGO KOBLET - THE CHARMING CYCLIST, which premiered at the Festival del film Locarno, is an homage to "the James Dean of cycling" who was both an exceptional athlete and a broken man. Swiss cycling legend Hugo Koblet (1925-1964) was a Tour de France winner and the first non-Italian to win the Giro d'Italia. A baker's son from Zurich, Koblet quickly rose to fame as the worlds first international cycling star. His elegant appearance and the ease of his success charmed and ...