The STARTER FILM AWARDS of the City of Munich and PHAROS - The Post Group were awarded

As part of the FILMFEST MÜNCHEN, the City of Munich annually awards three Starter Film Prizes, each endowed with 8,000 euros, to artistically outstanding films, especially by young, not yet established Munich filmmakers. In addition, we - PHAROS - award a Starter Film Prize | Production, as a monetary benefit for the post-production of a future film in the amount of 8,000 euros, awarded by an independent jury - to promote up-and-coming, innovative young directors from the region.

Jury statement: "The disappearance itself, the solitude of man in the Anthropocene, is captured in images in ARALKUM far beyond its specific object of observation, the Aral Sea. Something quite unfilmable, then. Not landscapes, but animal specimens stand at the beginning, later we see resistant desert plants, and only then people who live less than eke out an existence. In ARALKUM, the past permeates the present with fossil traces; only through the image-sound montage can the past be reanimated. A film as an essay that leaves the viewer with pressing questions.
Daniel Asadi Faezi and Mila Zhluktenko produced ARALKUM with a lot of research and little money. As in previous works, they combine multi-layered aesthetic precision and political power. The works of the two students of the University of Television and Film are more than cinematic promises, they are artistically mature - and of a consistency that is difficult to realise in today's film landscape. The jury therefore resolutely wants to acknowledge and specifically encourage the two's production achievements."