CFD 25 Youth|Winners

Screenings for Children and Youth
Winners / Sieger Sein (Κ)
119’, 2024, Germany

Mona had to flee Syria with her Kurdish family. Germany and Berlin are still foreign to her but what the eleven-year-old finds strangest, is her new school in the rebellious district of Wedding: anarchy reigns there. The pupils bully the teachers and their classmates, are obnoxious to everyone, don’t feel like doing anything - and no longer believe in a rosy future. Mona realises that Wedding means peace and freedom, but also frustration, aggression, and a lack of prospects.

Soleen Yusef was born in 1987 in the city of Duhok, in the Kurdish region of Iraq. When she was 9, her family fled to Germany for political reasons. She worked as a production, directing, and sales assistant at the film production and distribution company mîtosfilm. In 2008, she began studying Film Directing at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg. Her third-year film, Trattoria, premiered at the Berlinale in 2012. She was awarded the Deutschlandstipendium 2012/2013 for her outstanding academic achievements at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg. In 2013, she also participated 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 she shot in her hometown of Duhok in 2015, also served as her diploma film at the Baden-Württemberg Film Academy. Since then, she has worked on several international series productions, including for Netflix and Amazon Prime. In 2022, she directed the mini-series SAM – A SAXON for Disney+. In 2024, she directed her passion project Sieger Sein (Winners), which had its world premiere at the Berlinale competition GENERATION KPLUS section.

Directed by Soleen Yusef
Screenplay Soleen Yusef
Cinematography Stephan Burchardt
Editing Marty Schenk
Production design Nadja Götze
Music David Menke, Boris Rogowski
Sound design Sebastian Schmidt, Marty Schenk
Costume design Saskia Richter
Cast Dileyla Agirman, Andreas Döhler, Tamira Bwibo, Sherine Ciara Merai, Yumin Hannah Cho, Anisa Perk, Artemis Kostopoulou, Samira Hamieh, Fatima Hamieh, Carlotta Su Ipsen, Heidi Tebroke, Manasse Kiefer, Matteo Mermer, Dominic John Brandl, Rankin Duffy, Halima Ilter, Peri Baumeister
Producers Sonja Schmitt, Marc Schmidheiny, Christoph Daniel
Co-producers Dario Suter, Claus Boje, Joel Brandeis, Detlev Buck
Co-production companies Boje Buck Produktion, MDR, SWR, WDR

Selected Filmography
2024 Winners / Sieger Sein
2023 SAM – A Saxon
2016 House without Roof
2012 Trattoria

Awards
Nominated for Best Feature Film & Generation Kplus Best Film Awards, Berlin IFF, Germany, 2024.
Nominated for Young Audience Award, European Film Awards, 2024.