Films by Mila Zhluktenko

2025, 14 min
by Daniel Asadi Faezi, Mila Zhluktenko

In 1970, an entire small town was built in Munich for the Summer Olympics. In addition to the subway station, stadium, indoor swimming pool and housing estate, the largest shopping center in Europe at the time - the Olympia-Einkaufszentrum - was also built. Many migrant workers, so-called guest workers, are employed on the construction site. 2016: Nine people are murdered in a right-wing terrorist attack at the Olympia shopping center. All the victims come from families with migrant backgrounds. 1982: Sohrab Shahid Saless, an Iranian director, makes the film Recipient Unknown in response to the rapidly increasing racism in Germany. In the film, people repeatedly walk past houses, walls and facades smeared with right-wing extremist slogans. The colors flare up brightly and then fade again. In retrospect is an attempt to look back and find connections in the history of a place.

2023, 18 min
by Mila Zhluktenko, Daniel Asadi Faezi

A former military barracks of the Wehrmacht now serves as a refugee camp for people from Ukraine.WAKING UP IN SILENCE accompanies the children on their journey, where their own history meets that of the barracks.  A moment between past and future, war and silence, departure and arrival, which depicts a portrait of German history and its present through the eyes of its young protagonists."We would like to give the prize to a film that offers a tender glimpse into the daily rhythms of a dislocated childhood. This film’s effortless intimacy bears witness to enduring joy, strength and innocence against a backdrop of profound loss. We were moved by the film’s confident approach. It powerfully evokes a sense of place and history as it offers an important snapshot of the urgent present." [int. Jury Generation Kplus 73 BERLINALE]

Uzbekistan, Germany 2022, 14 min
by Daniel Asadi Faezi, Mila Zhluktenko

A desert landscape, as if from another planet. A few lonely, rusty shipwrecks. Low desert scrub grows around them to hold the sand together during the merciless storms. Aralkum, the Aral Desert, is the bare seabed, the last thing left of the Aral Sea.By weaving together different cinematic textures, the short film ARALKUM re-imagines the dried-up Aral Sea, allowing an old fisherman to set sail one last time.'The shortfilm prize goes to a film that opens a door on a landscape swept by human excess.A poetic, political and aesthetic work where words and archives give birth to a sensorial experience on disappearance, loss, memory, oblivion, absence.An unexpected and masterful cinematographic gesture that questions our humanity. [Jury Statement 53 VdR]'A film that combines a unique mix of documentary and experimental form. A warning story about the uncontrolled range that a human intervention to the environmental balance can take. A new cinematic reality very well constructed by the authors,  in an impressive movie. The Special Jury Award is bestowed to Aralkum.' [Jury Statement DRAMA ISFF]

2019, 24 min
by Mila Zhluktenko

Opera glasses are necessary to watch the stage from the back rows of the auditorium. If you content yourself with the foyer, you only need alert eyes and instinct: not only for the larger-than-life gestures of musical theatre, but also for the small (self) performances in public space. Checking oneself in the mirror, overzealous re-adjustments of one’s facial expression for a selfie, the inimitable coolness of aging cloakroom attendants – all this is part of the spectacle of visibility. (DOK. Leipzig, Lukas Foerster)There are plenty of red carpets for major stars, maybe enough. A very different location provides the scene for this film, a scene in which, for once, the staff and the guests play the main roles. With a subtle sense of humour, sensual imagery, precise sound design and an ability to unobtrusively follow the introverts while leaving the extroverts space to play to the gallery, the director provides entertaining – in the best sense of the word – observations on the soiree crowd and society in general. The cloakroom of an opera house becomes the stage, and we find ourselves waiting full of anticipation for the next act. The Golden Dove German Competition Short Documentary and Animated Film goes to Mila Zhluktenko for Opera Glasses. (GOLDEN DOVE, DOK. Leipzig, Jury Statement)