Film

Over a five-year period Pepa Lubojacki documents the lives of four family members, first and foremost brother David who is an alcoholic and homeless. Using a highly personal, diary-like collage Lubojacki attempts to lay bare the roots of intergenerational misfortune repeatedly manifested in severe addiction. Text sculptures, long-term observations, synth-infused beats and AI-animated childhood photos merge here into a striking and playful, unsparing yet loving revelation. If Pigeons Turned to Gold is both an act of surrender and a shimmer of hope, a show of strength and a process of resolution. Pepa Lubojacki thus brings the past to life, creating a context that shields David and their cousins, also suffering from addiction, from the judgmental gaze of the outside world – and its ignorance. In their gentle encounter, for one moment they become lonely children once again. Not so much in search of guilt but more healing, the end brings the possibility of a transformation, symbolized in the father’s dilapidated house that Pepa transforms into a safe space: Home, I’m coming.

The film premiered at the 2025 Berlinale, where it won the prestigious Berlinale Documentary Film Award and the Caligari Film Award.