IT
| Title | WINNERS |
|---|---|
| Original Title | Sieger Sein |
| Movie Type | |
| Genre | |
| Section | |
| Country | Germany |
| Production Year | 2024 |
| Movie Length | 118' |
| Director | |
| Screenplay | |
| Cast | Andreas Döhler, Anisa Perk, Artemis Kostopoulou, Carlotta Su Ipsen, Dileyla Agirman, Dominic John Brandl, Halima Ilter, Heidi Tebroke, Manasse Kiefer, Matteo Mermer, Peri Baumeister, Rankin Duffy, Samira Hamieh, Sherine Ciara Merai, Tamira Bwibo, Yumin Hannah Cho |
| Director of Photography | |
| Editor | |
| Casting | Jacqueline Rietz, Liza Stutzky |
| Production Designer | Nadja Götze |
| Costume Designer | Saskia Richter |
| Makeup | Virginie Thomann |
| Music | Boris Rogowski, David Menke |
| Produced by | Sonja Schmitt |
| Production | |
| International Distribution | |
| Festival Contact |
WINNERS
Eleven-year-old Mona and the rest of her seven-member Kurdish family have fled Syria and ended up in Berlin. Or, more precisely, the neighborhood of Wedding where Mona is sent to a notorious primary school attended by 90 percent “foreigners”. Chaos reigns in the school. Most of the teachers are having a nervous breakdown and frustration levels amongst the pupils are growing by the day. Mona feels it, too. She can barely speak German, but she can speak football. In her hometown, she often played street football with her mates. She misses her home, her friends and especially her aunt Helin, who always supported her passion for football. One day a teacher called Mr Che recognises Mona’s special talent and selects her for the girls’ team. But this well-intentioned gesture fails to make things any easier.
Director's Bio
Soleen Yusef was born in 1987 in the city of Duhok, in the Kurdish part of Iraq. She was nine years old when her family decided to flee to Germany for political reasons. She graduated from high school in Berlin in 2005 with a degree in fashion and clothing. This was followed by two years of singing and acting training at the ACADEMY Bühnenkunstschule Berlin as well as training as an IHK fashion seamstress. Soleen Yusef also worked as a production, directing and sales assistant at the film production and distribution company mîtosfilm. From 2008, she studied film directing at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg. Her third-year film TRATTORIA premiered at the Berlinale in 2012 in the Perspektive Deutsches Kino section. Soleen Yusef was awarded the Deutschlandstipendium 2012/2013 for her outstanding academic achievements at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg. In 2013, she also took part in a five-week Film Academy workshop at UCLA in Los Angeles as a Baden-Württemberg scholarship holder.
Her debut film HAUS OHNE DACH, which Soleen Yusef shot in her hometown of Duhok in 2015, is also her diploma film at the Baden-Württemberg Film Academy. Since then, the director has worked on several international series productions, including for Netflix and Amazon Prime. She filmed the mini-series SAM – A SAXON for Disney+ in 2022.
In addition to developing her own feature films and series projects, Soleen Yusef will bring her passion project SIEGER SEIN (WINNERS) to cinemas in 2024. The children’s film, which is being produced by DCM, premiered in February 2024 in the Berlinale competition GENERATION KPLUS, and was shown in cinemas across Germany from April.
Director's Note
“70, 80 percent of the events are told as they actually happened. Or as they were subjectively perceived. I am Kurdish, I grew up in the Autonomous Region of Kurdistan in Iraq, in the then still small town of Duhok, and my family fled to Germany in 1996. My father went ahead, taking the hard escape route with smugglers, and was fortunately able to catch up with us as soon as he had a residence permit. Both parents were very involved in the democratic parties in Kurdistan – and thus against the Iraqi regime, which was fighting us Kurds. From 1980 to 1988, the Gulf War between Iran and Iraq was also raging. At some point, my parents decided that we children could no longer grow up under conditions of war. Because the war in Iraq and the resulting wave of refugees happened so long ago, I adapted it to Syria. But Mona could just as easily have been Afghan. But I’m simply more familiar with a Kurdish background. It’s much closer.”