Director Pieter-Jan De Pue will receive the phoenix award at the Film Festival Cologne for THE LAND OF THE ENLIGHTENED. The award is handed out by the German news broadcaster phoenix and honors an internationally inspiring artist from the film and television industry. Last year, Joshua Oppenheimer received the award.
On December 8th, our hybrid feature documentary THE LAND OF THE ENLIGHTENED will have it’s German cinema release. The film is about a gang of Afghan kids from the Kuchi tribe dig out old Soviet mines and sell the explosives to children working in a lapis lazuli mine. When not dreaming of the time when American troops finally withdraw from their land, another gang of children keeps tight control on the caravans smuggling the blue gemstones through the arid mountains of Pamir.