Enter the world of David, a charismatic raw-vegan influencer whose rhetoric of healing and purpose draws followers into a self-styled movement that envisions a new “kingdom” beyond the state. Known as “Mister Raw,” David uses TikTok and YouTube to cultivate an audience seeking transformation and belonging in a space where self-improvement, conspiracy thinking, and far-right extremism quietly converge, where dietary purity and supplements are framed as pathways out of personal and political uncertainty.
The film’s unusually intimate access to Mister Raw’s circle stems from co-director Johannes Büttner’s personal connection to David, whom he has known since childhood. Soldiers of Light is an incisive and tragic documentary that observes rather than declares, and lingers long after.
“... the precision and consistency with which [Büttner and Vogel] observe this universe in order to better dissect it make their work indispensable.”
Giorgia del Don Cineuropa 09/04/2025
Visions du Réel 2025, 2025, ch
Dokfest München, 2025, de
Julian Vogel
Julian Vogel is a German documentary filmmaker. He studied at FU Berlin, the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, and La Fémis in Paris. His documentary trilogy Einzeltäter (2023), which examines families affected by right-wing extremist violence, received the Hessian Film Award, the Prize of the Duisburg Film Week, the Grimme Prize, and the German Television Award. In 2023 he founded the production company patatino.
Johannes Büttner is a German artist and filmmaker whose work spans documentary, installation, and performance. He holds degrees from the Universität der Kunste in Berlin and De Ateliers in Amsterdam. His practice examines social imaginaries, speculative futures, conspiracy theories, and the aesthetics of utopian or survivalist communities, often as a means to investigate the conditions of ideology and belief.
