Films by Sina Diehl

2024, 82 min
by Jennifer Mallmann

The controversial conviction of six refugees for the fires at Camp Moria marks the beginning of a moving search for humanity – uncovering the dark sides of an oppressive, often inhumane system. In September 2020, six refugees are sentenced in a questionable trial for burning down the Moria camp on the island of Lesbos. The director begins a correspondence with Hassan, one of them. At the same time, a new high-security camp emerges, a symbol of the dehumanizing gaze with which so-called civilized Europe views migrants.DISTRIBUTION GermanyCINE GLOBALhttps://www.cineglobal.de/moriasix/WORLDSALESFEELSALES https://feelsales.com/en/catalogo/moria-six-2/

Germany 2020, 16 min
by Nele Dehnenkamp

Five years ago, Hanan would never have dreamed that she would now be a swimming teacher. Fleeing IS from northern Iraq, in 2015 she crossed the Mediterranean with her family in a rubber dinghy. The boat filled with water, and Hanan couldn’t swim.She has an instant understanding with children who are afraid of water. Images of the vast blue sea and the fear of drowning are etched into her memory. Now living in Wolfsburg, Germany, she’s determined to have her younger brother learn to swim before his painful memories of the water rise to the surface, she says in an on-camera interview, as we follow her timid brother in the pool.The seahorse in the title refers not only to the creature that remains upright in the water, but also to the area of our brain, the hippocampus, where our memories are stored. This balanced documentary shows how water can take on a new meaning over time, and how swimming has become Hanan’s way of coping with trauma.“The magnificent cinematographic aesthetics create a convincingly poetic connection between the sound and the images. The film conveys the oppressive duality of water as a medium of happiness and doom. Seepferdchen gives the protagonist space to illustrate the traumatic effects of flight and how a young person can confront these experiences.” (Jury CIVIS Media Prize)