The Sonne and then the “Moon”: Kurdwin Ayub Begins Production on Sophomore Narrative Feature

Iraq-born Austrian filmmaker Kurdwin Ayub has just begun work on Mond (the translation of the word Moon). She is re-teaming with Ulrich Seidl Filmproduktion on a project that will film in Jordan and Austria. The given synopsis sounds Orwellian and underground but out there in the open. We’ll likely get to confirm the film’s female protagonist.

Sarah, a former professional kickboxer from Vienna, accepts an offer to work as a personal trainer for three daughters of a wealthy family in the Middle East. She lands in a strange world, in a palace behind walls and without internet, where the sisters are monitored 24/7. Little interest in boxing training. Why did they bring Sarah here though?

Winner of the Best First Feature Award at the Berlinale and a nominee for the European Discovery prize at the European Film Awards, in Nicholas Bell’s review of her narrative debut Soone he underlines that “…there’s no considerable resolution, other than an unexpectedly frivolous action fomenting the end of innocence for one young woman. Interesting, but not exactly covering new ground, Ayub’s power lies in her film’s intimate moments.”