Films by Kurdwin Ayub

Kurdwin Ayub is a singular figure among Austria’s young filmmakers. Her work to date includes about a dozen short films, most of them no longer than a few minutes, yet it can already be regarded as an absolutely unique, and consistent œuvre – and as very promising. Kurdwin Ayub’s films are characterized by a strange, irritating ambivalence and contradiction. Her supposed exhibitionism, ergonomic staging, and sometimes almost awkward self-projection are subtle, unsettling and momentarily heart- rending portraits of a young woman, who may be Kurdwin Ayub. Or a figure, that invents herself, is talk- ative and bashful, calculating and naive, emotional and vulnerable at the same time. In her films every- thing gets jumbled up: unbridled clichés and documentary openness, the radical personal and playing with false identities. (Hans Hurch)