SIEGER SEIN

 Director: SOLEEN YUSEF

 Time: 119’

 Year of Production: 2024

 Language: ELMANÎ-KURDÎ

 Subtitle: TIRKÎ-INGILÎZÎ

Synopsis

Eleven-year-old Mona fled Syria with her Kurdish family and now attends a school in Berlin’s Wedding district. Mona doesn’t speak a word of German, but she is a great football player. Her dedicated teacher, Mr. Chepovsky—known as Mr. Che—recognizes her exceptional talent and invites her to join the girls’ team. Mona is a fighter, but she soon realizes that only by playing together with the other girls can they truly be winners.

Biography

Soleen Yusef was born in 1987 in Duhok, in the Iraqî Kurdistan. She was nine years old when her family decided to flee to Germany for political reasons. In Berlin, she completed her high school diploma in fashion and clothing in 2005. She then pursued a two-year singing and acting course at the ACADEMY Stage Arts School in Berlin, along with a parallel apprenticeship as a certified tailor (IHK). Yusef also worked as a production, directing, and distribution assistant at the film production company Mitos Film. From 2008, she studied directing at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg. Her third-year film TRATTORIA premiered in 2012 at the Berlinale in the Perspektive Deutsches Kino section.