Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg Campus Magazin 23/24

ALUMNI IN FOCUS
“Access to Art as a Way of Life
Should Be Facilitated”
An interview with Soleen Yusef, Graduate in Directing / Fiction Film (2016)
SOLEEN YUSEF WAS BORN IN 1987 IN
DUHOK, IN THE KURDISH PART OF
IRAQ. AT THE AGE OF NINE, SHE FLED TO
GERMANY WITH HER FAMILY. IN ADDITION
TO TRAINING AS A SINGER AND ACTRESS
AND AS A FASHION SEAMSTRESS, SOLEEN
WORKED AS A PRODUCTION, DIRECTOR
AND SALES ASSISTANT AT THE COMPANY
MÎTOSFILM. FROM 2008, SHE STUDIED
DIRECTION / FICTION FILM AT THE FILM-
AKADEMIE BADEN-WÜRTTEMBERG. DURING
HER STUDIES, SHE MADE, AMONG OTHERS,
TWO DOCUMENTARIES BASED ON TRAN-
SCRIPTS OF THE “SZ-MAGAZIN” ABOUT THE
NSU TRIAL AS WELL AS HER THIRD-YEAR
FILM TRATTORIA, WHICH SHE WAS ABLE
TO PRESENT AT THE BERLINALE. THE FIRST
STEPS AWARD-WINNING DIPLOMA FILM
HAUS OHNE DACH WAS ALSO HER DEBUT.
SOLEEN RECEIVED A GERMAN SCHOLAR-
SHIP AND TOOK PART IN THE HOLLYWOOD
WORKSHOP AT UCLA IN LOS ANGELES,
WHICH WAS FUNDED BY THE FOUNDATION
BADEN-WÜRTTEMBERG STIFTUNG.
After graduating, she worked as a director for several
international series productions, including the hiphop
drama SKYLINES (Netflix), the GDR spy series
DEUTSCHLAND 89 (Amazon Prime) and the miniseries
SAM - EIN SACHSE (Disney+). She is currently shooting
the children’s film SIEGER SEIN, for which she both
wrote the script and directed.
Hi Soleen, it’s great that you found time to talk
to us. The film SIEGER SEIN (being victorious) is
about 11-year-old Mona, who fled Syria with her
Kurdish family, now goes to a school in Berlin
Wedding and is a gifted football player. I read that
this film was a project close to your heart. Why?
SIEGER SEIN is a very personal project. The film is a
tribute to my primary school teacher at the time. When
I had just spent a few months in Germany after fleeing
from northern Iraq, I was accepted into a class with a
high percentage of migrants in Berlin Wedding. One of
the teachers there was very political, an anarchist and
socialist, and he knew a lot about the conflicts in northern
Iraq and the Kurdish problem. Not least because of
this, I felt recognized and understood by him. Also, this
teacher had a special focus on empowering girls. He had
just started a girls’ football team, of which he was the
coach, and he motivated me to join it. For him, football
was a playground, but also a key for character development,
empowerment and self-confidence while improving
school performance. Up until that point, I was mostly
familiar with street football – I had played a lot of
football on the streets of Kurdistan with my brother –
but this was my first exposure to team sports.
Did your former teacher also advise you on the
book adaptation?
He knew that I was preparing this film and read the
scripts for SIEGER SEIN. He gave me tough feedback but
also very good input. He even had photo albums from
back then because he was so proud of his first girls’ team.
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