Aralkum
Daniel Asadi Faezi & Mila Zhluktenko, 2022, 14mins
Once the Earth’s fourth largest body of inland water, the Aral Sea has depleted by ninety percent since 1960 after the Soviet Union diverted its tributaries for agricultural irrigation. This short film plants us where the Aral Sea once lay—an eerie and disorienting landscape now known as the Aralkum, the youngest desert in the world. There, a sole species of tree lives in the absence of a once-rich marine ecosystem, and the last human inhabitants of the former shoreline try to navigate survival in a desolate landscape.
Daniel Asadi Faezi & Mila Zhluktenko
Daniel Asadi Faezi is a filmmaker and visual artist based in Munich. He studied at University of Television and Film Munich and National College of Arts Lahore, Pakistan. Throughout his artistic practice, Daniel Asadi Faezi focuses on narratives of landscapes, architecture and the historical and political scopes attached to those places. He looks at human geographies with different means of cinema, using visual anthropology, archival approaches, field recordings, oral history and typography.
Mila Zhluktenko, born in Kyiv, Ukraine, studied documentary film directing at the University of Television and Film Munich. Her films have been screened and awarded at numerous international festivals, including Semaine de la Critique in Cannes, IDFA, San Sebastian Film Festival, MoMa DocFortnight and Dok Leipzig. In addition, Mila Zhluktenko also works as an editor. Since 2021, Mila Zhluktenko has also been a member of the Munich-based film magazine Revü. And in 2023 she joined Filmfest Munich as a Program Scout.
