Risen from Ruins

Harry Besel is a film director and screenwriter born in Kazakhstan and raised in Kassel. He studied Visual Communication with a focus on film and moving image at the Kunsthochschule Kassel, where he graduated in 2024 with distinction. His work moves fluidly between fiction, documentary, and experimental storytelling. His graduation film Risen from Ruins (short film, fiction, 20 minutes), completed in October 2025, celebrated its world premiere at the 59th Hof International Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Jury Short Film Award of the City of Hof. During its ongoing festival run, the film marked its international premiere at the Brussels Short Film Festival, where it won the Next Generation International Audience Award, and screened at the IN THE PALACE International Short Film Festival in Bulgaria. It has since screened at several other festivals including the Munich Festival of Future Storytellers, Kassel Dokfest, where it was nominated for the Golden Hercules, the Bamberger Kurzfilmtage, the Landshut Short Film Festival, and Lichter Filmfest Frankfurt International. His 2023 semester film GRENZER – A Border Tale (short film, fiction, 29 minutes) screened at festivals such as KURZSUECHTIG in Leipzig in 2024 and the Landshut Short Film Festival in 2025. His earlier work The Ball Man (2019), an experimental film shot on 16mm, was selected for the Hessen Talents program in 2020 and celebrated its international premiere at the Polish On Art Film Festival in 2020, where it received an Honorable Mention. Alongside his own projects, he worked in 2023 as first assistant director for the French filmmaker Bertrand Mandico on the film production Le Lunes Amères and in 2024 as a production assistant on Tom Schreiber’s feature film Beautiful Souls.