Visar Morina

Visar Morina (* 1979 in Pristina ) is a film director and screenwriter who was born in Kosovo and has lived in Germany since his youth . He has received numerous German and international prizes for both his short films and his feature films.

Life

Visar Morina, who was born in 1979 in Pristina in Kosovo, which was then part of Yugoslavia , came to Germany at the age of 15. Between 2000 and 2004 he worked on various film and theater projects, including as an assistant director at the Volksbühne Berlin . He then studied directing and screenwriting at the Art Academy for Media in Cologne . His graduation film Der Schübling premiered at the Max Ophüls Festival and was also broadcast on ARTE. After completing his studies in 2009, he made his last short film Von Hunden und Tapeten , which ran in the 2013 International Competition in Locarno and was nominated for the 2014 German Short Film Award, among other things .

These short films were followed in 2014 by Morina's feature film debut Babai as director and screenwriter. In the father-son story, he tells of the 10-year-old Nori and his single father Gesim, who live in a rural region of Kosovo. They roam the streets, sell cigarettes and barely earn a living. When Gezim was lured to Germany a few years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, he left his son looking for a new life, but Nori embarked on a dangerous journey to Germany in search of his father. Morina remembers. "There are hardly any scenes in the film that I did not experience myself or in the immediate vicinity." Babai was Kosovo's Oscar entry in 2016 and was released in German cinemas in March 2016.

Morina's second feature film Exil premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2020 and was presented in the Panorama section of the Berlin Film Festival in February 2020 . The screenplay for Exil was awarded the German Screenplay Prize in 2018. Even before the premiere of his film in Sundance, Morina was counted among the “10 Europeans to Watch 2020” by the American trade journal Variety, together with directors Nora Fingscheidt ( Systemsprenger ) , Leonie Krippendorff ( Kokon ) and Sudabeh Mortezai ( Joy ) .

Filmography (selection)

• 2010: Der Schübling (short film)
• 2013: About dogs and wallpaper (short film)
• 2015: Babai
• 2020: exile

Awards (selection)

Crossing Europe

• 2016: Received the Crossing Europe Award (Babai)

German script award

• 2018: Awarded the Golden Lola ( exile )

German short film award

• 2014: Nomination for Best Short Film (Von Hunden und Tapeten)

TV film festival Baden-Baden

• 2016: Awarded the MFG Star (Babai)

Film Festival Cottbus

• 2015: Received the First Work Award from the student jury (Babai)

Munich Film Festival

• 2015: Awarded the One Future Prize (Babai)
• 2015: Received the Young German Cinema Award for directing (Babai)
• 2015: Award for Best Screenplay (Babai)

New German Cinema Award

• 2015: Awarded the Director's Prize (Babai)
• 2015: Awarded the Scriptwriting Award (Babai)

Karlovy Vary International Film Festival

• 2015: Award for Best Director (Babai)
• 2015: Award Label Europa Cinemas (Babai)
• 2015: Nomination for the crystal globe (Babai)

Locarno Film Festival

• 2013: Nomination for the Pardino d'oro - Leopards of Tomorrow in the international competition (Of dogs and wallpapers)

German Film Critics' Prize

• 2017: Nomination for best feature film debut (Babai)

Sarajevo Film Festival

• 2020: Award for Best Film with the Heart of Sarajevo (Exile)

Sundance Film Festival

• 2020 : Nomination in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition (Exil)

Tirana International Film Festival

• 2010: Received the Jury Award for Best Fiction Short Film (Der Schübling)

Web links

• Visar Morina in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Exile / Exile. In: berlinale.de. Retrieved March 4, 2020.
2. ↑ Hannah Pilarczyk: "Exile" filmmaker about migrants in the cinema: "We keep asking ourselves where we belong". In: Der Spiegel, August 22, 2020.
3. ^ ^{A b} Kaspar Heinrich: Escape drama "Babai": Not without my father. In: Spiegel Online, March 8, 2016.
4. ^ Vita of Visar Morina. In: daserste.de. Retrieved March 4, 2020.
5. ↑ http://www.tittelbach.tv/programm/kino-koproduktion/artikel-4992.html
6. ↑ 2020 Sundance Film Festival: 118 Feature Films Announced. In: sundance.org, December 4, 2019.
7. ↑ Sundance Film Festival 2020: Program. In: sundance.org. Accessed December 21, 2019 (PDF; 1.1 MB)
8. ↑ Panorama 2020: (Un) common Grounds. In: berlinale.de. Retrieved December 17, 2019.
9. ↑ Jochen Müller: First films for Berlinale 2020. In: Blickpunkt: Film, December 17, 2019.
10. ^ Variety Unveils 10 Europeans to Watch for 2020. In: Variety . January 16, 2020, accessed February 19, 2020 . 
11. ↑ Babai. In: crossingeurope.at. Retrieved March 4, 2020.
12. ↑ Babai. In: filmfestivalcottbus.de. Retrieved March 4, 2020.
13. ↑ Christopher Vourlias: Visar Morina's 'Exile' Wins Top Prize at Sarajevo Film Festival. In: Variety, August 20, 2020.