Writer and director Kurdwin Ayub was born in Iraq, but her family came to Austria as refugees when she was a baby. Today, at 34, she has made a name for herself in the film world as an auteur.
His 2016 feature documentary Heaven! Heaven!!, which she wrote, directed and was the cinematographer for, won the award for best camera at the Diagonale – Austrian Film Festival. It follows Omar, a father who has lived in Austria since 1991. He is now considering buying an apartment in Kurdistan as an investment. THRCritics call the documentary “an engaging intersection of the national and the geopolitical.”
His short fiction film Boomerang The film premiered at the Max Ophüls Preis Film Festival in Saarbrücken, Germany, in 2019, and won the jury prize for best short film. “Adnan is obsessed with going to his ex-wife’s housewarming party,” a plot description reads. “Unfortunately, he’s not invited.”
Ayub’s first feature-length fiction film Sun (Sun) had its world premiere at the 2022 Berlin Film Festival in the Encounters section, which aims to “encourage aesthetically and structurally daring works by independent and innovative filmmakers.” The film focuses on three friends who decide to shoot a music video in burqas “in a moment of ordinary madness.” Ayub ended up winning the Best First Feature Film award, which was presented in all sections of the festival.
Sunday, his second feature-length fiction film Mon (Moon) will make its highly anticipated debut in the international competition of the 77th Locarno Film Festival. Like his first fiction feature, it was produced by Ulrich Seidl Filmproduktion, with Austrian directors Ulrich Seidel and Veronika Franz as producer and associate producer, among other members of the film’s crew.
“Sarah, a former martial artist, leaves Austria to train three sisters from a wealthy Jordanian family,” reads the Locarno website. “What at first seems like a dream job quickly becomes unsettling: the young women are cut off from the outside world and under constant surveillance. They don’t seem interested in sports. So why was Sarah hired?”
In a director’s note on the website, Aybu explains: “It’s all about sisters, no matter where they come from, and cages, no matter where they are. Cages you want to leave and cages you wish you could return to.”
Ayub spoke to THR about her new film, the importance of music, why she likes to provoke audiences and what’s in store for her.
How exciting is it for you to bring Mon to a prestigious festival like Locarno?
To be completely honest, there is a kind of pressure. Last week, I thought that Sun I had so much success, and I suddenly realized that it was not normal to receive this big prize for my first film at the Berlinale. When I realized that, I thought: “Oh my God, Moon must also succeed.” But I have to deal with this kind of…
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