Ferhat Gurini: The Lost Generation
Conero Film + ADV Director Spotlight
Resilience Without Hope: Ferhat Gurini on The Lost Generation and the Power of Cultural Resistance
Words by Katie Huelin
As Conero Film + ADV 2025 soon approaches (September 4–7), the festival continues to affirm its role as a platform where creativity and conscience converge. Among the works in this year’s Official Selection is The Lost Generation, a two-minute, powerful film by emerging director Ferhat Gurini, produced by Bacon for the humanitarian brand Generation Gaza.
The Lost Generation sets out to humanise the unbearable tension between resilience and despair that Palestinians face continually. “The film tries to capture a form of resilience that does not stem from hope but from the absence of an alternative. It is not heroic. It is not optimistic. It is silent, stubborn and painful,” says Gurini.
Set in the desert, the film closely follows a lonely wanderer reckoning with personal loss in a space between reality and memory. Made from a mix of new and archival footage, it was inspired by the viral 2024 interview with the brother of Shaaban al-Dalou, who was burned alive in his tent during an airstrike. The result is a devastating and poetic cry for peace.
Read our interview with Ferhat where we discuss his path from politics to film, the making of The Lost Generation, and the role of art in humanising tragedy.
Heart Shaped Bed unfolds like a sensory fever dream - visually intimate, sonically disorienting, and emotionally raw. How did you approach the four-act structure in shaping that descent (or release) into emotional chaos?
Thank
Identity feels fluid throughout, shifting across gender, intimacy, desire, and detachment. What kinds of conversations or internal questions guided how you portrayed the self in transformation?
Nico and Sol
“It is not heroic. It is not optimistic. It is silent, stubborn and painful.”
The red strobe, the shadows, the mirror-like surfaces, all evoke a certain bodily fragmentation and desire to escape. How did you build that visual language to mirror the emotional states of the character?
I’m really glad it resonated like that. I remember watching the first scans and thinking, fuck
The film navigates intimacy not just as connection, but also as coping - a kind of ritual. How did you approach sexuality and touch in the film as emotional, not just visual, tools?
Touch and sexuality in the film aren’t just about intimacy – they’re ways of coping whe
What was the collaborative process like in shaping this world together with Sol Astolfi and Nicolás Astorga?
We start
We exchanged inspirations, wrote a text treatment together, and kept circling back to the emotional core of the track. It was a bit of a rollercoaster at times, which I think is natural in any creative process where everyone has a strong vision. In the end, it came down to compromise and trust, allowing each person to carry their part.
Your work moves between commercial projects for brands like Adidas and Nike, and deeply personal ones like Heart Shaped Bed. Where does this film sit in your creative evolution, and what's next for you?
This pr
Director: Ferhat Gurini
Production Company: Bacon
DoP: Tobi Aman Manczak
Producer: Alicia Moon
Executive Producer: Samuel Cantor
Editors: Thomas Irving, Frederik Marbell
VFX: Viktor Gelbek, Emanuel Kambo / Bacon XO
Colorgrade: Hannibal Lang / BaconX
Sound Design: Mads Bergland
Music: Coolpacc
Production Design: Travis W. Sproul
1st AC: Anders Bévort
Gaffer: Andreas Moeslund, David Sizemore
Camera Assistant: Hussein Ali Kazem
Production Assistants: Sienna Bruun, Anja Giele
Best Boy: Mathias Hornum
PD Assistant: Sara De Gang
Graphics & Research: Jacky Su, Isabella Zibert
Communications: Lasse Cato
Special thanks to:
Storyline Rental, The Lab, Claudia's