Alireza Golafshan’s New AI Thriller ‘Zoma’ Starring Leonie Benesch: First Image and Release Date Announced
German director Alireza Golafshan has completed filming his AI-themed courthouse thriller Zoma in and around Munich.
Starring in the lead role is Leonie Benesch, whose recent performances in the Oscar-nominated The Teachers’ Lounge and the Munich Olympics hostage drama September 5 garnered international attention. In Zoma, she plays Elli Schreiber, an ambitious young lawyer tackling a seemingly insurmountable case against a powerful tech corporation.
The film is the inaugural project from Story Garden, a newly established production company co-founded by former Wiedemann & Berg Managing Director Justyna Muesch and her colleague Sofie Scherz, alongside Golafshan, in 2024.
Co-produced with Studiocanal, Bayerischer Rundfunk, and Arte, Zoma has also received support from the FFF, FFA (jury-based cultural production funding), and the German Federal Film Fund DFFF.
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The film is set for a theatrical release in Germany on January 28, 2027, with Studiocanal managing worldwide rights sales.
Alongside Benesch, the cast features Barbara Sukowa (Hannah Arendt), portraying a grieving mother seeking answers related to her son’s death, which she suspects may involve the AI therapy app Zoma.
Elli Schreiber, defying her superior, takes on the case, finding herself up against the tech firm NuvoMind and its formidable legal team, as well as an algorithm that seemingly understands human emotions better than people do.
The supporting cast includes Tom Schilling (Murder Mindfully), Tobias Moretti (The Dark Valley), Frederic Linkemann (The Conference), Julian Looman (Pagan Peak), Florian Geißelmann (Sound of Falling), and Devid Striesow (Ah, This Gap, This Appalling Gap).
This marks the fourth collaboration between the founders of Story Garden after Golafshan’s comedy Alles Fifty Fifty, which earned him the Bavarian Film Award for Best Director in 2024; along with JGA: Jasmin.Gina.Anna in 2021 and The Goldfish in 2019.
Muesch and Scherz expressed their pride in the project, stating, “In an era defined by the rise of AI, Alireza stages a courtroom drama of striking urgency, exploring what it means to be human. Supported by a brilliant ensemble, the film reveals a new facet of his versatile creative profile. As a newly founded production company, we are proud to celebrate our debut with this work.”
Golafshan co-wrote the screenplay with German writer Moritz Binder, who was also Oscar-nominated for the screenplay of September 5, alongside Tim Fehlbaum and Alex Davidl.
Studiocanal Co-CEOs Hooman Afshari and Lutz Rippe remarked, “Alireza Golafshan’s and Moritz Binder’s screenplay captivated us from the first to the last page and is exactly in tune with the zeitgeist.”
They added, “Zoma is a film that moves us deeply and raises questions we as a society can no longer postpone. We are delighted to collaborate with the newly founded Story Garden Film and the renowned producers Justyna Muesch and Sofie Scherz – and thrilled to work with an exceptional ensemble whose intensity goes straight under the skin.”
