That’s me in the corner
That’s me in the spotlight
Losing my religion
Trying to keep up with you
And I don’t know if I can do it
Oh no I’ve said too much
I haven’t said enough
Three teenagers, wearing hijabs, twerk, shoot cheeky selfies and pose in front of the mirror while covering the hit Losing my Religion by REM. This hilarious first scene, which strikes the audience for its simplicity as well as nostalgic power, captures the deep essence of Sonne, and makes it hard to believe that this is actually the first narrative feature of the young director Kurdwin Ayub.
Yesmin (Melina Benli) is a Viennese of Kurdish-Iraqi origins in her last year of high school. She studies, argues with her brother and mother, and hangs out with her two silly best friends Bella (Law Wallne) and Natalie (Maya Wopienka). However, when the pop video the three had shot in Yesmin’s apartment becomes viral on YouTube their lives change. The trio becomes famous within the Kurdish community and starts performing at parties. Yesmin, who is the only Kurd among the trio, starts being dissected under the stage’s spotlights. Should she wear the hijab while singing? Is it ok if she dances in public? Is she even allowed to be funny and have fun? Can she still be considered a real Muslim even though she is making fun of religion? Her certainties begin to crumble and seem to collapse when her best friends meet two Kurdish patriots. Yesmin loses everything: her friends, her religion, her own self.
As a Kurdish-Iraqi-Viennese herself, Ayub felt the urge to tell this story of personal research and admits there is much of her autobiography in Sonne. Ayub, just like Yesmin, grew up in the suburbs of Vienna in a quite strict religious family and often wondered about how to conceal the different parts of herself. Like the three protagonists of the movie, Ayub often questioned who she is and what she wants to be. While the spectator struggles to keep up with their continuous changes, a question arises: why it is so important, to them, to label themselves? This coming-of-age movie reflects on a displaced generation, who has mixed roots due to increasing global migrations and must keep up with the expectations of the family, friends, and communities. So, what is left to Yesmin, as well as to Natalie and Bella, is to constantly negotiate their identities. In this process, the ever-present social media play a crucial role.
Youtube, Instagram, and Whatsapp are the other three protagonists of the movie. Without them, Sonne couldn’t even exist. Long sequences of Instagram stories, selfies with alien filters, night video calls, as well as Vlogs are giving us a taste of today’s teenagers’ routine. This massive use of social media extracts gives the viewer the impression of actually being part of the movie, of being yet another follower of this witty trio. Also, the language, a mix of Viennese slang and Arabic, with its high points in expressions like “Voll haram (Totally forbidden)!”, confers a natural flair to the whole movie. Moreover, the fact that Yesmin’s parents are an actual couple and none other than the director’s parents gives the whole production a very intimate feeling. The documentarist style characterizing this movie is also traceable in the camera’s fast movements, the abrupt cuts, and the improvised dialogues; Clearly, a mark of Ulrich Seidl, the main producer of this movie, with whom Ayub has worked in the past.
Sonne, which stands for the symbol of the Kurdish flag, but is also one of the few elements present in everyone’s life, regardless of the nation they live in, the god they worship, or the language they speak, was premiered at Berlinale 2022 in the Encounters section, and won the GWFF prize for first narrative feature.