​How Losing Voices broadcasts the silenced

What was the inspiration for the film? Are there any direct influences from cinema?

It actually came from my close family, so the topic has been with me for quite a long time. But year by year, the situation for journalists has become more and more repressive all around the world, which made the urge to tell this story even stronger.

The deeper I dove into other cases and the more I researched the topic, the stronger the feeling became that I had to make a film about it.

Right now, 471 journalists and media workers are imprisoned worldwide because of their work and 22 journalists have already been killed since the start of 2026.

How did you develop the concept for it? Did you investigate investigative journalists yourself?

Once I knew I wanted to make a film about this topic, the big question was how to approach it and which perspective to take. I wanted to show journalists as human beings with families, friends and a life beyond their profession.

It doesn't start with the arrest. It starts earlier. Whether it's intimidation, sabotage or countless smaller mechanisms that slowly make journalistic work more dangerous.

I interviewed several journalists who had been imprisoned for their work, and through those conversations, one thing became clearer and clearer: I didn’t want to make a film about imprisonment or torture. I wanted to focus on the time between publication and arrest. That strange period when danger could potentially be waiting around every corner, but on paper, you are still free.

How do you think the risks for journalists have increased over recent years?

Right now, 471 journalists and media workers are imprisoned worldwide because of their work, and 22 journalists have already been killed since the start of 2026. We are living through one of the worst periods for press freedom in decades.

And we don't even have to look very far away. The repression of journalism is increasingly becoming normalised, even in places where we once took press freedom for granted.

Software like Pegasus allows journalists to be surveilled and put under enormous pressure.

It doesn't start with the arrest. It starts much earlier. Whether it's intimidation, sabotage or countless smaller mechanisms that slowly make journalistic work more difficult and more dangerous. On top of that comes technological development. Software like Pegasus allows journalists to be surveilled and put under enormous pressure. Altogether, it's incredibly frightening.

During my research, I interviewed Grigory Pasko, a Russian journalist who was imprisoned under both Yeltsin and Putin. Towards the end of our conversation, he shared a metaphor that has stayed with me ever since. “If you think about democracy, imagine a table. One leg represents free elections, one an independent judiciary, one an independent parliament and one freedom of speech and press. If you remove one of the first three legs, the table collapses immediately. But if you remove the leg representing freedom of speech and press, the table remains standing for a while. Slowly, almost unnoticed, it begins to fall.”

Can you share how you cast the film?

From the very beginning, I had Bünker Casting by my side. It took us quite some time to find the fitting cast. The challenge was finding actors who could communicate so much without saying a single word. We did chemistry reads and different casting constellations before finally finding our two leads, Anna-Lena Schwing and Samir Fuchs. I am still incredibly happy we found them.

Above: On set of Losing Voices with lead actor Samir Fuchs.

Can you share details of the shoot? Did any unexpected challenges arise?

We had two shooting blocks. The first one took place in Berlin, but the second one was quite challenging because of the topic itself. We simply couldn't get permission in the countries we planned to shoot, and everyone involved was understandably cautious and worried about producing a film on this subject.

Most important to me is that the film motivates people to look deeper into the stories of imprisoned journalists.

In the end, we found a way to make it happen, but let's just say we had to be quite creative in how we approached it. Three days before the shoot of the second block, we still didn't know whether we would actually be able to pull it off. Definitely an intense process.

What has been the reaction to your film?

The reaction has been really positive. I’ve had emails from people I didn’t know telling me how the film had moved them and stayed with them afterwards.

Most important to me is that the film motivates people to look deeper into the stories of imprisoned journalists. Because that's where the real problem lies. They are silenced behind bars, but we should never stop talking about them. They raised their voices for us. Now it's our turn to raise ours for them.

Above: DP Diara Sow at work.

What's your background and route into directing?

I started out acting in theatre as a kid. Some of the directors I worked with back then were kind of frightening, shouting at actors and everyone around them, except for me, because I was the only kid. I really enjoyed acting, but I became more and more interested in the possibilities that open up once you leave the stage.

At some point, I started writing screenplays in the safe surroundings of my childhood bedroom. It took me some time to actually direct my first film, but once I did, I simply never stopped. I studied, dropped out, worked in production for a while, and eventually started studying directing at Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg. And now I’m here, incredibly grateful that I get to work on projects I really burn for.