Director of
MOND
Kurdwin Ayub, born in 1990 in Iraq, is a director, screenwriter, and artist. She studied painting and animated film at the University of Applied Arts as well as performative arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Since 2010, her performative works, animated films, music videos, as well as documentary and feature films in both short and long formats, have been presented at numerous film festivals and exhibitions worldwide and have received many awards.
Her first feature-length film, the documentary PARADISE! PARADISE!, in which Ayub directed, wrote the screenplay, and handled the cinematography, was shown at international film festivals and received awards including the New Waves Non-Fiction Award at the Seville European Film Festival 2016 and the Carte Blanche Nachwuchspreis at the Duisburg Film Week 2016. Her first fiction feature film SONNE premiered in 2022 in the Encounters competition section at the Berlinale and was awarded the Best First Feature Award. Additionally, the film was nominated for the European Discovery Award at the 35th European Film Awards. Her second fiction feature film MOON, starring Florentina Holzinger and Andria Tayeh in the lead roles, had its world premiere in 2024 in the competition at the Locarno Film Festival and was awarded the Special Jury Prize.
Films (selection): PARADIES! PARADIES! (2016), BOOMERANG (2018, Short), LOLOLOL (2020, Short), SONNE (2022)