In their collaborative works, Daniel Asadi Faezi and Mila Zhluktenko link historical and political questions with a sensitive and often poetic observation of places and their dwellers. Through documentary footage, archive material, enactments, and fabulations, the film-makers develop their own formal language of remembrance and story-telling. They follow the traces of the past that are inscribed in the present—in urban space, in architecture, and landscape—, and tie these to the ramifications of migration, war, and racism. Their works emerge from the concrete encounter with places and people, and don’t yield to rigid ideas. For this specific programme, Asadi Faezi and Zhluktenko present three short films and subsequently give insights into their latest work. 

Film programme  

Waking up in Silence, D.: Daniel Asadi Faezi, Mila Zhluktenko, Germany 2023, 18', Ukrainian with English subtitles  
The film-makers follow refugee children from Ukraine in a former Wehrmacht barrack in Schweinfurt. Through daily explorations and games the current reality of the children is being interwoven with the history of the place.  

Rückblickend betrachtet [In hindsight], D.: Daniel Asadi Faezi, Mila Zhluktenko, Germany 2025, 14', German with English subtitles 
The focus of the film lies on the Olympia-Einkaufszentrum (OEZ) in Munich. On the basis of archive footage, it studies the continuity of exclusion and violence and reflects how political structures manifest in a collective memory. 

Critical Condition, D.: Mila Zhluktenko, Germany 2025, 24', Ukrainian with English subtitles  
Inspired by the life of Ukrainian journalist Lev Rebet in the diaspora in Munich, Critical Condition weaves historical and contemporary perspectives into a poetic reflection on exile and political struggles.