In her highly personal feature documentary Praise the Sands, presented October 26 as an advanced work-in-progress at Leipzig’s DOK Industry, director Annina Lehmann explores the rural landscape of her childhood in Brandenburg, asking people about their fears and longings.
“I meet teenagers by a lake haunted by nightmares, a shepherd who still feels like an outsider after 20 years, a bike mechanic who participates in Prussian battle re-enactments and a ghost healer who remembers his past lives,” Lehmann comments. “The emotional core of the film is a sense of loss that is reflected back to me in the people I meet.”
Producer Margarita Amineva-Jester underlines how Praise the Sand “speaks directly to one of the urgent questions of our time: the centrifugal forces pulling societies apart, in Germany and beyond.”
“Yet the film is not only an anatomy of fragmentation. It also contains a real and necessary hope. By reminding us of our shared vulnerability…the film asks whether recognition might seed empathy, generosity and action,” she adds. “This gives Praise the Sand a resonance far beyond the particular landscape of Brandenburg, East Germany, in which it is rooted. The film grows out of a specific place, and from Annina’s own childhood there, but the emotional and political forces it explores are visible across Europe, the United States and much of the world.”
The film has thus far been independently financed, but is now ripe for investment in its post-production and distribution phases. In January 2026, the film received the Lightdox Award for European First Film Pitch at FIPADOC.
“At our current stage we are looking for partners to help finance the post-production,” says Amineva-Jester. “We are very glad to be able to present the film to an international audience in Leipzig because we think this German story can speak to people across Europe and beyond. We are therefore keen to find partners for the international distribution and festival journey of the film in the second half of next year.”
The producer further stresses how Annina brings a special perspective to the place and people she observes by being “both a child of the region and someone who returns as a stranger.”
“She can look at Brandenburg both from within and without—a position of emotional intimacy and critical clarity essential to this film,” Amineva-Jester continues. “Her years living and working in different countries, including the UK and Georgia, have taught her to thrive in unfamiliar environments and to approach people with openness, patience and humility.”
“Her background in philosophy, politics and literature adds a distinctive depth to her filmmaking. Meanwhile, her nomadic existence fuels a real and personal urgency for this search for the meaning of home, which drives the story of the film.”
The film is shot in cinemascope, “giving space to the wide landscapes of Brandenburg with its sweeping fields, open sky, lakes and straight roads lined by trees,” the producer further articulates. “Light and wind animate the natural world, just as we watch thoughts and emotions move through the faces of the people in front of the camera.”
The style promises to be adventurous, a mix of “rough-and-ready” cinéma vérité style, characterised by “hand-held camera, a searching gaze and a physical immediacy,” combined with a “dreamlike, floating gaze” in scenes of group observation like a local football game or an annual re-enactment of a Prussian battle. “The visual language of the film thus blends the layers of everyday reality and the dreamlike world of fantasy and memory into a tapestry that is intentionally eclectic, entertaining and enchanting,” Amineva-Jester stresses.
“I love that the documentary form allows life to intervene directly into the artistic process and shape it,” Lehmann comments of her chosen form. “While making the film, I was surprised how openly complete strangers would speak to me of their fears of war, of the loss of loved ones, childhood memories and nightmares. This openness moved me and made me want to respond to this trust in some way. Instead of only showing others, I decided I had to open up myself, too, to create a balance of the gaze, and this is how this film turned into a very personal one.”
Producer Amineva-Jester sums up Praise the Sand’s unique offer to investors and public alike. “The film is unique for addressing the polarizing topic of social fragmentation – with the backdrop of the rise of the extreme right – through the unusual and delicate angle of people’s emotions, dreams, memories, rather than their explicit political choices,” she says. “It does so in a playful way, sensitive to humour, mystery and tenderness. This makes it a highly engaging as well as insightful viewing experience for international arthouse audiences across Europe and beyond.”
