The animated film »Fake News« (Director / Screenplay / Cinematography / Editing / Production / Animation: David Seul; Animation: Cem Karayakas, Kishore Srinivasan, Elisa Drache) won an award yesterday at the FIRST STEPS Young Talent Award in the Short Steps category—which comes with a prize of 5,000 euros. It was created as a final project for the MA 3D Animation for Film & Games, a master’s program offered by ifs Internationale Filmschule Köln and the Cologne Game Lab at the Technical University of Cologne. The nomination alone came with a prize of 1,000 euros.

In »Fake News«, a plant lives peacefully on a balcony overlooking a street until one day its owner begins reading fake news online about how to care for plants. Severe mistreatment forces the plant to take drastic measures: believing that a computer is the source of all evil, the plant attempts to kill the computer.

The FIRST STEPS Young Filmmakers Award is the most prestigious award for graduation films from film schools in German-speaking countries. With a total prize fund of 132,000 euros, FIRST STEPS is the most highly endowed award for emerging filmmakers and is presented annually in ten categories. This year, 187 submissions were accepted.

Created on 07.10.2025