76th Berlin International Film Festival · 12–22 February 2026

Berlinale 2026 archive

Berlinale 2026 has ended. This page records the edition; its screenings have finished.

The 2026 programme

The 76th edition ran from 12 to 22 February 2026. OV Kinos collected original-version screenings during the festival, including films in Competition, Panorama, Forum, Generation and Berlinale Special. A section describes the programme; it does not tell you the spoken language or subtitle language of an individual screening.

345 recorded film entries are available below. This is the programme saved by OV Kinos, not a complete festival archive.

17

Unknown · North Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia · Colour · 105 min

Seventeen-year-old Sara is hiding a secret on a school trip. When the trip spirals out of control and Sara witnesses a classmate’s sexual assault, she and the other girl seal a bond that will last forever.
575 Castro St.

Unknown · USA · Colour · 7 min

The film focuses on the light and shadow playing on the walls of the Castro Camera Store, a location in Gus Van Sant’s Milk. The soundtrack features Harvey Milk himself, shortly after his election to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977.
A Circle as the Center of the Whole

Forum Expanded · India, USA · Colour & Black/White · 19 min

The city of Delhi is a site of constant excavation, formed by fragments of what is left behind. Archaeology becomes method and metaphor, revealing an absence in the ground around which the city forms.
A Fabulosa Máquina do Tempo

Generation · Brazil · Colour · 70 min

In the arid Brazilian hinterland, girls play poised between their mothers’ difficult pasts and fantastic dreams for the future. In a place where men are still seen as giants compared to women, the girls cross the threshold from childhood into adolescence.
A Family

Generation · Netherlands, Belgium · Colour · 89 min

Caught in the crossfire of their parents’ divorce, Nina and Eli are torn between loyalty, anger and a longing to be seen. Through their mirrored perspectives the same story unfolds, revealing how love can fracture and still find its way home.
A New Dawn

Competition · Japan, France · Colour · 76 min

Keitaro lives in a fireworks factory that is about to be shut down. He is determined to unravel the mystery of the Shuhari, a mythical firework created by his father before he disappeared without a trace – and launch it before the factory closes.
A Prayer for the Dying

Unknown · Norway, Greece, United Kingdom, Sweden · Colour · 95 min

In the wake of the American Civil War, veteran Jacob Hansen’s dream of a new life in Friendship, Wisconsin becomes a nightmare. As an epidemic spreads chaos, Jacob – sheriff, undertaker and pastor – must fight to save his town, his family and his soul.
À voix basse

Competition · France, Tunisia · Colour · 113 min

Lilia returns to Tunisia for her uncle’s funeral and reunites with a family that knows nothing about her life in Paris, especially her love life. Determined to confront her family’s secrets, Lilia sets out to unravel the mystery of her uncle’s sudden death.
Abracadabra

Generation · United Kingdom, India · Colour · 20 min

On a school bus ride that feels both endless and fleeting, Agastya wrestles with identity, guilt and unspoken emotions when his best friend chooses to sit elsewhere.
A German New Wave of Directors

Unknown · English · 50 min

Berlinale curator Jenni Zylka is joined by Faraz Shariat, Daniel Magnani Hüller and Sa&scaron;a Vajda, directors of first or second features at this year’s festival. Though differing in style and content, they share a passion for creating their own cinematic language.
AI Realism – Qantar 2022

Forum · Kazakhstan · Colour · 24 min

Menlibayeva explores fake news, propaganda and the power and powerlessness of AI through a disturbing animated film on political violence in post-Soviet Kazakhstan that culminates in January 2022. From fragments towards a countermemory.
Allá en el cielo

Generation · Peru · Colour · 18 min

In the outskirts of Lima, eleven-year-old Chito cares for the carrier pigeons used in his brother’s drug trade. After violence shatters his childhood, grief and a tender gesture of humanity open the possibility of another destiny.
Allegro Pastell

Panorama · Germany · Colour · 100 min

Novelist Tanja and web designer Jerome, both in their thirties, have perfected a balance of intimacy and separation in their long-distance relationship. When Tanja catches a glimpse of a settled future together, she wonders if it is really what she wants.
Allemagne année 90 neuf zéro

Retrospective · France, Germany 1991 · 62 min

Lemmy Caution, a western intelligence agent in East Germany, travels through the unravelling country, visited by the ghosts of Germany past. A multi-layered collage of sound and image that uses numerous classic German films.
Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros

Unknown · Philippines · Colour · 100 min

Twelve-year-old Maxi lives in the slums of Manila where he is the calm centre of his petty criminal family. They accept his homosexuality – but when Maxi befriends a young police officer, conflict at home is inevitable.
Animol

Unknown · United Kingdom · Colour · 90 min

Behind the walls of a young offender institution, Troy is thrust into a brutal world of gangs, loyalty and violence from the moment he arrives. When an unspoken bond develops with a fellow inmate, it becomes a dangerous vulnerability for them both.
AnyMart

Forum · Japan · Colour · 88 min

A supermarket as both a microcosm of Japanese society and the setting for a socially critical horror film. Expressionless faces and a supervisor who demands zombie-like friendliness. Only young Sakai does not stop hoping. What a debut!
Árru

Panorama · Norway, Sweden, Finland · Colour · 95 min

Sámi reindeer herder Maia fights to protect her ancestral lands from a looming mining project. Amid the growing protests, she is also confronted with deeply buried family traumas. Maia is forced to make a decision.
Artist Talk: Unauthorised Versions

Forum Expanded · Event

In conversation with curators Karina Griffith and Shai Heredia, the artists participating in the Forum Expanded exhibition provide insights into their work and discuss historical continuities, incomplete historiography and the possibility of counter-narratives.
Assarab

Berlinale Classics · Morocco 1979 · 100 min

After serendipitously finding a bundle of money, a poor villager tries his luck in the big city. There, he encounters a range of people also hoping for a better life – preachers, soothsayers, jugglers. A seminal work of post-colonial Moroccan cinema.
At the Sea

Competition · USA, Hungary · Colour · 112 min

After rehab, a woman returns to her family’s Cape Cod house, where sobriety forces her to confront buried trauma and the terrifying question of who she is without her career that once justified her self-destruction.
Atlasul universului

Generation · Romania, Bulgaria · Colour · 85 min

After mistakenly buying two right-footed shoes, ten-year-old Filip sets off across the countryside to find the missing left one. An unexpected journey of courage, friendship and self-discovery.
Augmenting Histories: Indigenous Approaches to XR Media Art

Forum Expanded · Event

<div>Cassandra Gardiner and Juan Mateo Menendez (Land Invaders) in discussion with Isabelle Ruiz (Indigenous Screen Office) about the use of immersive media by Indigenous artists and the critical potential of augmented reality. Talk in English.</div>
Auslandsreise

Forum · Germany · Colour · 63 min

A year in Berlin: Leonie wanders through the city and the texts of Anna Maria Ortese. Speaking with friends and translator Sigrid Vagt, she is also looking for the narrative threads of her own life. A film of reading, shot in glowing, matter-of-fact 16mm.
Award Ceremony Generation 14plus

Generation

Screening of a feature-length and a short film from the Generation 14plus competition, selected by the Youth Jury.
Award Ceremony Generation Kplus

Generation

Screening of a feature-length and a short film from the Generation Kplus competition, selected by the Children’s Jury.
A Woman’s Place Is Everywhere

Berlinale Shorts · USA · Colour · 19 min

After the death of their mother, twin sisters face eviction from the loft that has been their home for more than three decades – a place like a living time capsule, filled with layers of memory, art, motherhood, sisterhood and New York history.
Bamboozled

Retrospective · USA · Colour · 136 min

A Black television writer tries to get fired by creating the “New Millennium Minstrel Show” showcasing racist stereotypes – but it then becomes a huge hit. With his satire of the media, Spike Lee indicted the racism inherent in America’s popular culture.
Barbara Forever

Forum · USA · Colour · 102 min

Lesbian experimental filmmaker Barbara Hammer (1939–2019) was an icon and a pioneer. Infused with dyke poetry, this archive film shows how she lived, loved, worked, fought and inspired, also showing that the private is uncompromisingly political.
Bats & Bugs

Generation · Switzerland · Colour · 11 min

When a streetlamp lights up on a country road in the jungle, a group of insects goes crazy – which proves to be handy for the hungry bats in a nearby cave.
Beaucoup parler

Forum · France · Colour · 78 min

Pascale accompanies her Egyptian friend Amr on his rocky path to a residency permit. The system, authorities, lawyer, papers, paperwork, a language course. A refreshingly honest film full of solidarity about challenges of migration and “se comprendre”.
Berlinale Camera for Max Richter

Unknown · English · 75 min

The festival is honouring Max Richter with the Berlinale Camera in recognition of his outstanding contributions at the intersection of music, cinema and cultural reflection. The laudatory speech is being delivered by director Chloé Zhao (Hamnet).
Berlinale Closing Ceremony – Golden Bear for Best Film

Competition

Screening of the Golden Bear-winning film of the 76th Berlinale.
Berlinale Closing Gala – Award Ceremony

Competition · Event

The International Jury under the presidency of Wim Wenders, the Perspectives Jury, the International Short Film Jury and the Berlinale Documentary Award Jury present the main awards of the 76th Berlin International Film Festival.
Berlinale Doc Talk hosted by Matt Carey

Unknown · English · 50 min

“Deadline” magazine’s documentary editor Matt Carey is hosting this introduction to documentaries in the festival programme, welcoming filmmakers from across the sections who will introduce their inspirational stories of resilience and compassion.
Berlinale Documentary Award

Unknown

The section-spanning Berlinale Documentary Award is presented by a three-person jury for the best documentary film and is endowed with 40,000 euros.
Berlinale Film Talk: İlker Çatak

Unknown · English · 50 min

İlker Çatak is returning to the Berlinale after his international hit The Teacher’s Lounge with Yellow Letters. In this conversation with Berlinale advisor Toby Ashraf, he will talk in-depth about his latest work and beyond.
Berlinale Film Talk: John Turturro and Noah Segan

Unknown · English · 50 min

Actor John Turturro is joined by Noah Segan, the director of The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, which is presented in Berlinale Special Gala, for a conversation about their film and storytelling.
Berlinale Shorts Award Winners

Berlinale Shorts

The International Short Film Jury awards the Golden Bear for Best Short Film, the Silver Bear – Jury Prize (Short Film) and the Berlinale Shorts CUPRA Filmmaker Award. The award-winning films will be screened along with the Teddy Award – Best Short Film.
Berlin, Bahnhof Friedrichstraße 1990

Retrospective · Germany 1991 · 86 min

A changing of track. Observations and interviews with border guards and commuters at Berlin’s Friedrichstrasse station in 1990, as the border between East and West Germany was becoming ever more porous and this crossing was already being dismantled.
Black Burns Fast

Generation · South Africa · Colour · 100 min

Adorkable Luthando is on track for an ordinary year at the prestigious boarding school she attends on scholarship – until the arrival of a new girl in her class ignites Luthando’s suppressed desires and threatens her self-image and relationships.
Black Lions – Roman Wolves

Forum · Ethiopia, USA · Colour & Black/White · 531 min

Decades in the making, Haile Gerima’s sweeping survey of Italy’s brutal colonial legacy in Ethiopia is a monumental reckoning with suppressed history. With a balladeer’s spirit, Gerima forges an epic saga of resistance, freedom and national pride.
Born of the Yam

Forum Expanded · Singapore · Colour & Black/White · 60 min

A techno-mythological ritual of light and sound to an imagined demigod born of a yam. This 16mm expanded cinema performance evokes the spectres of ritualism and mythic idols in our modern times.
Boyz n the Hood

Retrospective · USA 1991 · 112 min

A classic of New Black Cinema. Growing up in disadvantaged circumstances in a neighbourhood riddled with drugs, robberies and shoot-outs, a young man develops a strong personality that saves him from sliding into a life of crime.
Bucks Harbor

Panorama · USA · Colour · 98 min

Boys in Downeast Maine are shaped by the brutal winters, their harvesting of the ocean’s bounty and the rigid codes of their fathers. Bucks Harbor explores growing up in a community where a man’s worth is often defined by the strength of his back.
Butterfly Stories: Malaise II

Forum Expanded · Switzerland, Germany · Colour

This analogue multi-screen installation is part of the ongoing artistic research project “Expanded Spectropoetics”. It addresses collections from natural history museums to activate haunting memories of the forthcoming.
C’est ma sœur

Generation · Canada · Colour · 15 min

When Camille, a teenager with Down’s syndrome, auditions for a dance troupe, her sister Agathe discovers the quiet cruelty of prejudice – and the fierce love that fights back.
Caligari Film Award Ceremony

Forum · 120 min

Since 1986, the Caligari Film Award honours an innovative film from the Berlinale Forum programme. The 4,000 euro award, sponsored by communal cinemas and partners, is split between the director and the distributor.
Casting for a Film, Ihsan’s Diary

Forum Expanded · Lebanon · Colour

In Beirut, actors audition for a film based on a soldier’s diary written in Jerusalem in 1915. They interpret scenes, reflect on the First World War and the present-day, and explore longing, identity and memory.
Cesarean Weekend

Forum · Iran · Colour · 93 min

In a villa in the north of Iran, the dividing lines between different generations of a family and those separating celebration from discord are sounded out, as is the meaning of love. An intense, wild and philosophical depiction of contemporary Iran.
Chaos and Control: Exposing Systems That Thrive on Confusion

Unknown · English · 75 min

Academy Award–nominated filmmakers Sara Khaki & Mohammadreza Eyni (Cutting Through Rocks) and Andrew Jarecki (The Alabama Solution) examine how their documentaries confront abuses of state power and the erosion of trust in public institutions.
Chicas Tristes

Generation · Mexico, Spain, France · Colour · 90 min

La Maestra and Paula are inseparable friends and the strongest swimmers on their team, until an incident at a party forces them to choose between silence and speaking out, testing the limits of their friendship.
Chloé Zhao – In Conversation

Unknown · English · 60 min

The Oscar winning director joins Berlinale Talents to discuss her career thus far right through to Hamnet, reflecting on how this year’s theme of embracing chaos and discomfort has impacted her work.
Chronicles From the Siege

Unknown · Algeria, France, Palestine · Colour · 98 min

When their city is placed under siege, the lives of a group of ordinary people are turned upside down, forcing each of them to confront impossible choices in pursuit of what they believe is survival in a war zone.
Chronos – Fluss der Zeit

Forum · Germany · Colour & Black/White · 200 min

Tracing biographical lines, Volker Koepp steps into his oeuvre, rich in encounters. Returning to Lithuania, Moldova and Czernowitz, he looks back and brings things up to date, as the war against Ukraine becomes a determining element of the present.
Chuuraa

Berlinale Shorts · United Kingdom · Colour · 18 min

In the remote Siberian Arctic, an Indigenous Sakha scientist descends into the depths of the melting permafrost. Searching for an ancient creature, he makes his way through the dangerous, claustrophobic caves to the mythical realm of the Underworld.
Composer’s Talk with Daniel Blumberg

Unknown · English · 90 min

Academy Award–winning composer Daniel Blumberg (The Brutalist) dives into his musical curiosity and shares his insights from his work on The Testament of Ann Lee.
Con Fusion: Sasha Waltz on creating connecting choreographies

Unknown · English · 90 min

Internationally renowned choreographer Sasha Waltz, who is based with her company Sasha Waltz & Guests at Radialsystem, makes her Berlinale debut by giving a lecture at Berlinale Talents.
Controlled Chaos: The Production Design Process

Unknown · English · 90 min

Production Designers share their creative journey from early stages of pre-production to the final execution stage of bringing all of the elements together.
Cosmonauts

Berlinale Shorts · Slovenia, Italy · Colour · 14 min

On an intergalactic cruise for singles, lonely souls chase a kiss, a caress or just a glimpse of love among the stars. A colourful collision of desire, longing, humour and absurdity.
Crocodile

Forum · New Zealand, Nigeria · Colour · 100 min

In Nigeria, the young art collective The Critics, armed with makeshift gear, conjures homemade sci-fi spectacles, chronicling their reality while blasting into wild imagined worlds. A vibrant documentary and a gleeful ode to the power of (self-)invention.
Cuando llegue a casa

Generation · Mexico · Colour · 20 min

Paco, a teenager from Guadalajara, explores his identity through his friendship with Andrea and his attraction to Mario. This tests his bond with his grandmother as he prepares for the feast of the patron saint.
D’Est

Retrospective · Belgium, France, Portugal 1993 · 115 min

A documentary following a journey from West to East, from summery Germany to wintry, snowy Moscow. In this road movie of still lifes, which eschews voiceover narration, the camera explores the landscapes and the faces of the people who live in them.
Dao

Competition · France, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau · Colour · 185 min

A film in which two celebrations of life, a wedding in France and a commemoration in Guinea Bissau, are organically intertwined with the threads of a family and heritage that live and travel between these two worlds. Perpetual circular movement framing reality.
De capul nostru

Forum · Romania, Italy · Colour · 94 min

Flavia’s mother a carer in Italy; her father on a building site. Luca and Tina supposed to be looked after by their fragile grandmother. A wonderful coming-of-age film about growing up among those of the same age when the adults have left the stage.
Der Heimatlose

Unknown · Germany · Colour · 122 min

When Hein returns to his home village on a remote island after 14 years away, nobody in the close-knit community recognises him. Suspecting the young man to be a stranger, they demand a trial to determine his true identity.
Der Kontrolleur

Retrospective · Germany 1995 · 62 min

A psychological study of a “borderline” regime fanatic. A former East German border guard is unable to come to terms with the fall of the Wall. The widowed loner continues to show up for “duty” at the abandoned border crossing, where his behaviour ends in tragedy.
Deutschlandfunk Kultur „Im Gespräch“ with Enno Trebs

Unknown · German · 50 min

Enno Trebs is the German among the European Shooting Star presented at the Berlinale. He has convinced in The White Ribbon, Köln 75, Afire and on stage at the Berliner Ensemble for his quietly self-assured presence.
Deutschlandfunk Kultur „Im Gespräch“ with Eva Trobisch

Unknown · German · 50 min

After her debut All Is Well, Eva Trobisch made Ivo, a precisely observed portrait of a woman. Now, the Competition is presenting Etwas ganz Besonderes, her ensemble film about a family from Gera.
Deutschlandfunk Kultur „Im Gespräch“ with Markus Schleinzer

Unknown · German · 50 min

Actor and casting agent Markus Schleinzer had festival success as a director with Michael and Angelo. Now his third film Rose, starring Sandra Hüller, is being presented in the Competition.
Deutschlandfunk Kultur „Im Gespräch“ with Tom Tykwer

Unknown · German · 50 min

Director, writer, producer and jury president – Tom Tykwer knows the Berlinale from all perspectives. His films have opened the festival three times, in 2025 with The Light. This year, Run Lola Run is in the “Lost in the 90s” retrospective.
Di san xian

Berlinale Shorts · People’s Republic of China · Colour · 24 min

A rough wind blows between the dreary apartment blocks. In this world of adults, a rebellious boy struggles to find his way and encounters violence everywhere he turns. A portrait of a society in fragmented images.
Die Blutgräfin

Berlinale Special · Austria, Luxembourg, Germany · Colour · 119 min

The Blood Countess and her maid embark on a quest for the red elixir of life and a book that threatens the vampire realm. Hot on their heels are a police inspector, two vampirologists, a vegetarian nephew and his therapist.
Director’s Talk: Ulrike Ottinger

Retrospective · English · 60 min

Ulrike Ottinger in discussion with art and film curator Doris Berger about her film Johanna d’Arc of Mongolia, a musical and travelogue that artistically synergises fiction and documentary material.
Dirty Girls

Retrospective · USA 1996 · 18 min

A documentary about four schoolgirls bullied by classmates. In an interview, the committed adherents of the Riot Grrrls movement defend themselves against their vilification as “Dirty Girls”. A DIY video that has garnered millions of views on YouTube.
Doggerland

Forum · Sweden · Black/White · 76 min

Instead of finding a “proper” job, Alf, pushing 40, lives with his mum and drifts though Norrköping’s cultural scene. Chats & faces, routines & intuitions, local politics & everyday life – the intimate and the social, in black-and-white analogue images.
Douglas Gordon by Douglas Gordon

Panorama · United Kingdom, France · Colour · 88 min

An intimate portrait of the celebrated artist. As the boundary between reality and performance blurs, the shifting relationship between filmmaker and subject calls into question who is actually making the film.
Dust

Competition · Belgium, Poland, Greece, United Kingdom · Colour · 115 min

At the end of the 1990s, during the height of the Belgian tech boom, visionary entrepreneurs Luc and Geert watch their empire collapse as news of their fraud breaks. With just one day of freedom left, they part ways in search of redemption.
Effondrement

Forum · France · Colour · 78 min

After October 7, 2023, Anat returns to what was once her home, wandering for over two years through a burned-down kibbutz and farmland now strewn with war machines. Beyond the fence she sees Gaza being annihilated.
EIGHT BRIDGES

Forum · USA · Colour · 82 min

“It seems to be the time to consider bridges.” – James Benning
Ein Unfall

Berlinale Shorts · Austria · Colour · 30 min

In the microcosm of a small village, paths and fates cross. A car is burning at the roadside, pigs are dying in their sties and a man is lying on a park bench. Is he dead? Who is to blame, who is responsible and when did the playful mood turn sour?
Einar Schleef – Ich habe kein Deutschland gefunden

Forum · Germany · Colour & Black/White · 92 min

With his monumental productions, Einar Schleef pushed theatre to the outer reaches, confounded expectations in East and West alike, grappled with GDR origins and the BRD present. A universal artist emerges from the archive: “I’m not human, I’m dynamite.”
El jardín que soñamos

Panorama · Mexico · Colour · 102 min

In a land not their own, amid a dwindling forest, a family carves out a fragile bubble of tenderness – a fleeting garden of hope where love can still take root.
El León

Forum Expanded · Colombia · Colour · 14 min

Strange images overlap like floating ghosts: a dead body, a singer, an audience. The film shows, paradoxically and theatrically, how death inhabits the León de Greiff Auditorium in Colombia.
El Tren Fluvial

Unknown · Argentina · Colour & Black/White · 75 min

Nine-year-old Milo lives in a remote Argentinian village where he studies the Malambo, a folk dance full of bravura. He is an excellent dancer, but Milo’s only desire is to escape the countryside on a train for the Buenos Aires of his dreams.
En Route To

Generation · South Korea · Colour · 106 min

Following the disappearance of her teacher, the pregnant pupil Yun-ji is left all alone. To pay for an abortion, she steals the savings of her roommate, Kyung-sun. A film about the right over one’s own body, about society and community.
En, ten, týky!

Generation · Czechia, Slovakia · Colour · 11 min

Yios, a lonely mythical boy whose head shines like the sun, struggles to make friends in the clouds. After an unfortunate prank sends him down to Earth, an unexpected encounter challenges the way he sees himself.
Enjoy Your Stay

Panorama · Switzerland, France, Philippines · Colour · 99 min

To avoid losing custody of her six-year-old daughter in Manila, Luz, an undocumented Filipina cleaner working in a luxury Swiss ski resort, must earn money at any cost – even if it means transgressing her own moral limits.
Entotsumachi no Poupelle – Yakusoku no Tokeidai

Generation · Japan · Colour · 98 min

After losing his friend Poupelle, young Lubicchi wanders into a mysterious realm where a tower clock is frozen at 11:59. To return home, he must restart it – and find the courage to believe again.
Entropia

Unknown · Hungary · Colour · 10 min

Three women, three lives in parallel worlds, until the moment a fly causes a bug in the system. The universe collapses, sex is in the air, bras are overrated and the stars twinkle.
Erogotoshi-tachi yori: Jinruigaku nyûmon

Berlinale Classics · Japan 1966 · 128 min

A pornographic film director surrenders to his perversions, satisfies those of his customers, and calls it a democratic act. Greed and base instincts dictate this grim grotesquerie by directing maestro Shōhei Imamura (1926–2006).
Etwas ganz Besonderes

Competition · Germany · Colour · 116 min

“Who are you and what defines you?”, Lea is asked by the production crew of a reality talent show. She does not know. And with this question, her search for an identity within and beyond her family’s hotel in the forests of the former East Germany begins.
European Shooting Stars Live with Aminata Belli

Unknown · English · 50 min

Discover this year’s Shooting Stars: ten highly promising young actors from all across Europe who are shaping the European cinema of tomorrow.
Everybody Digs Bill Evans

Competition · Ireland, United Kingdom · Colour & Black/White · 102 min

At the height of his career, legendary jazz pianist Bill Evans loses his bassist and musical soulmate in a tragic car crash. The film portrays the inner life of a musical genius as he struggles to learn that sometimes an intermission is part of the music.
Everything Else Is Noise

Forum · Mexico, Germany, Canada · Colour · 71 min

In Mexico, Tere opens her home to Rosa, a fellow musician-composer, for her TV interview. Topics meander and new voices drift in. An absurdist comical chamber piece that skewers art-world hypocrisy, mocks pretension and celebrates a singular womanly bond.
Everything Everywhere All At Once

Unknown · USA · Colour · 139 min

While she is in a meeting with her tax inspector, laundromat owner Evelyn Wang’s universe is turned upside down. Space and time dissolve and she discovers that the multiverse is real. Evelyn’s new mission: to save the world from an unknown evil.
Exprmntl 4 Knokke

Forum Expanded · Germany 1968 · 42 min

Turn of the year 1967/68: at the fourth EXPRMNTL festival in the Belgian seaside resort of Knokke, the film documents spontaneous performances, happenings and protest actions, capturing – only a few months before May ’68 – the harbingers of cultural upheaval.
Fanfictie: Volcanology

Forum Expanded · Indonesia, Italy · Colour

Deep down in the bowels of a mountain, a Dutch geologist’s volcanic theories clash with local cosmologies in the Indonesian archipelago. Colonial science encounters the poetic, radical possibilities of reading nature otherwise.
Fashion x Film with Bina Daigeler

Unknown · English · 50 min

Academy Award-nominated costume designer Bina Daigeler joins the Berlinale HUB to explore the intersection of fashion and film in her newest work for the Competition entry Rosebush Pruning.
Feito Pipa

Generation · Brazil · Colour · 93 min

Gugu, an almost-twelve-year-old boy with football dreams, is raised in the accepting care of his grandmother, Dilma. As she becomes increasingly frail and their world shifts, he struggles to protect the place where he is free to be who he is.
Filipiñana

Unknown · Singapore, United Kingdom, Philippines, France, Netherlands · Colour · 100 min

New girl Isabel is strangely drawn to Dr. Palanca, president of the country club where she works. As she pieces together a violent picture of what lies beneath the club’s pristine surfaces, she realises that they are both connected by a sinister shared history.
Filme Pin

Forum Expanded · Colombia, Portugal · Colour · 7 min

Between light, metal and silver, a collection of solidarity pins turns into an archive of another scale: spectres of exile and international struggle against Portugal’s fascist and colonial regime.
Filming Under Siege

Unknown · English · 90 min

Filmmaker Abdallah Alkhatib (Chronicles from the Siege) and his team address their relationship built on trust, but also the current political state of their region, which has directly influenced some of their artistic and technical choices.
Film No. 4 (Bottoms)

Forum Expanded · USA 1966 · 6 min

In silent, black-and-white sequences, Yoko Ono shows naked, walking buttocks. The Fluxfilm from 1966 offers a new take on the portrait, proposing an image of humanity in its most vulnerable and egalitarian form.
Flim Flam

Berlinale Shorts · Austria · Colour & Black/White · 15 min

A visual and acoustic reflection about perception, deception, truth and the medium of film itself. Between visibility, irritation, structure and dissolution, a space arises for one’s own vision. An experimental film that wants to be experienced.
Floresta do fim do mundo

Forum Expanded · Brazil · Colour · 25 min

Suely, an Indigenous woman living in a large Brazilian city, spends her days in a small apartment. In her dreams, she communicates with a forest and connects to secrets of a world undergoing radical changes.
Flying Tigers

Forum · Germany, India · Colour · 105 min

An Alzheimer’s-plagued mother’s fear of tigers in Assam sparks a multi-location probe into the US army unit supplying Kunming in WWII. A collective quest through history’s butterfly effects, told via found stories and turned hybrid.
Forest up in the Mountain

Forum · Argentina · Colour · 91 min

In 2017, young Mapuche Rafael Nahuel was killed by police in the Patagonian forest. Site visits, court proceedings – the film unites the elements involved in solving the crime. Meticulously observed: the struggle for civil rights and narrating history.
Forêt Ivre

Unknown · Belgium, France · Colour · 102 min

In the northern Alps, Anne, Hélène and Suzanne take turns looking after a mountain hut. Through the seasons, hikers come and go. Stories bloom and fade, leaving each of them facing the silence of their chosen solitude and the poetry of nature.
Forever…Forever

Forum Expanded · Austria, France · Colour · 21 min

The uninterrupted light trail of one year and ten months, condensed down to 20 minutes, filmed on a self-made camera. Daily rhythms accelerate, slowly at first, then more intensely. A structuralist film about transience.
Frauen in Berlin

Forum · German Democratic Republic 1981 · 142 min

A projection on a sheet, secretly filmed, now restored from VHS: for her film, Indian Chetna Vora, who studied in the GDR, spoke with women from the ages of 11 to 83 in East Berlin. “It turned out longer than permitted.” What luck! Praise the privacy!
Fruits of Despair

Forum Expanded · Iran · Colour · 29 min

While making a film about the Israeli-Palestinian war, an Iranian filmmaker is thrust into war himself. He is forced to flee Tehran with his family, and his political essay transforms into a twelve‑day diary of survival, exile and identity.
Geheimnisse einer Seele

Berlinale Classics · Germany 1926 · 80 min

A man develops a phobia of knives and turns to psychoanalysis for help. A psychological thriller in the strict sense of the term. Accompanied by music by Yongbom Lee, with the neural activity of one musician translated live into light and sound.
Gelbe Briefe

Competition · Germany, France, Turkey · Colour · 128 min

Life is good for Derya and Aziz, a celebrated artist couple from Turkey, until an incident at their play’s premiere. Suddenly targeted by the state and struggling to balance their ideals with life’s necessities, their marriage is pushed to a breaking point.
Geunyeoga doraon nal

Panorama · South Korea · Black/White · 84 min

She has just finished the shoot of an independent film and now has to give three interviews about it. Afterwards, in her acting class, her teacher asks her to reenact the interviews. But for some reason, she is unable to remember them.
Ghost in the Cell

Forum · Indonesia · Colour · 106 min

Joko Anwar’s supernatural horror-comedy set in a prison: inmates must unite against a murderous ghost who turns corpses into art installations. Staying calm is near-impossible – and riotously funny, laced with sharp jabs at power, corruption and violence.
Ghost School

Generation · Pakistan, Germany, Saudi Arabia · Colour · 88 min

Ten-year-old Rabia wants to know why her school has suddenly closed. Rumours are rife in the village and the authorities are no help. Courageously setting out to find the truth, Rabia navigates rural superstitions, local corruption and a wall of silence.
Glocken aus der Tiefe. Glaube und Aberglaube in Rußland

Retrospective · Germany, USA 1993 · 60 min

A visual study of believers and religious charlatans in Siberia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. A fascinated Werner Herzog encounters true spirituality and genuine ecstatics, but also dubious faith healers and shamans.
Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die

Berlinale Special · Germany, USA · Colour · 134 min

A man from the future enters a diner in Los Angeles. He has to recruit exactly the right combination of people from the customers present for a nighttime mission to save the world.
Gorilla Bathes at Noon

Retrospective · Yugoslavia (until 1992), Germany 1993 · 83 min

After the Red Army withdraws from the former East Germany, a Russian major is left wandering aimlessly around Berlin, which he experiences as a theatre of the absurd. A post-socialist satire incorporating documentary fragments and archival footage.
Graft Versus Host

Berlinale Shorts · Germany, Georgia · Colour · 31 min

In this speculative video essay, the filmmaker connects his medical history with the shifts in post-Cold War geopolitics and their impact on contemporary politics.
GWFF Best First Feature Award

Unknown

For the competitive Perspectives section, a three-person jury presents the Best First Feature Award – funded by the GWFF.
Han ye deng zhu

Unknown · People’s Republic of China · Colour · 90 min

The future. Winter. Space travel is no longer a dream. A lonely janitor tends the grounds of a dilapidated bankrupt film studio with only a former cat actor for company until he embarks on a romantic journey with a female player in a beautiful virtual world.
Hangar rojo

Unknown · Chile, Argentina, Italy · Black/White · 81 min

As the 1973 military coup unfolds in Chile, Air Force Captain Jorge Silva is torn between duty and conscience as his academy turns into a detention centre.
Hear the Yellow

Forum · Turkey · Colour · 105 min

Due to family matters, Suna returns to the Turkish village where she is from. Riven with cracks caused by drought, her parental home is as fragile as the relationships between the local people. Undeterred, Suna shines a light into the past’s dark corners.
Henry Is a Girl Who Likes to Sleep

Berlinale Shorts · Belgium · Colour · 13 min

The filmmaker writes a letter to her cat, Henry. She is looking for a soft and tender place to inhabit – a quiet refuge of warmth to retreat into when the world becomes too loud. An ode to our captive pets and the intimate worlds we build together.
Heysel 85

Berlinale Special · Belgium, Netherlands, Germany · Colour · 91 min

When violence erupts before the 1985 European Cup Final at Brussels’ Heysel Stadium, killing 39 people, the mayor’s daughter and a journalist are drawn into the heart of the tragedy, caught between professional duty, family loyalty and moral responsibility.
Hotel Oblique

Generation · Germany · Black/White · 8 min

A budgie finds itself in a luxurious wellness hotel that promises stressed birds peace and relaxation. But between the lulling sound of the fountains and soothing massages, it longs only to return to the safety of its cage.
House of Yang

Berlinale Special · Germany · Colour · 80 min

In 1949, a girl disappears from an isolated house in the Black Forest. Fifty years later, another girl disappears. Now, in the present, the ghosts of the past step out of the shadows once more in this six-part mystery series.
Hukkunud Alpinisti hotell

Berlinale Classics · USSR, Estonian SSR 1979 · 83 min

There is a murder at a snowed-in mountain hotel. Could supernatural forces be at work here? This genre-busting film noir with elements of fantasy is based on the eponymous novel by legendary Soviet writing duo Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.
I Built a Rocket Imagining Your Arrival

Forum · Brazil · Colour · 92 min

Fifty-something Rosa, lying in an MRI scanner, is prompted to summon a happy memory. She plunges into a meandering, subconscious road trip with her bubbly mother, where wild imagination becomes a tender, unruly form of therapy.
Ich verstehe Ihren Unmut

Panorama · Germany · Colour · 93 min

Heike, a customer service manager at an understaffed cleaning company, must secure more working hours and revenue for a subcontractor after she is caught trying to poach an employee from his company.
If Pigeons Turned to Gold

Forum · Czechia, Slovakia · Colour · 110 min

Alcohol addiction is a constant in Pepa Lubojacki’s family. In an attempt to find a sisterly way of dealing with it, text, long-term observation, beats and AI-animated photos are combined into an unflinching, yet loving form of disclosure.
İki Laborantın Yorgun Saatleri

Forum Expanded · Turkey, Germany, United Kingdom, Croatia · Colour · 22 min

Late at night, two lab assistants analyse an unknown substance. A coffee break turns into a fortune-telling session, shifting their gaze from science to intuition. They imagine a space where rational inquiry and foresight coexist.
Im Glanze dieses Glückes

Retrospective · Germany 1990 · 83 min

Citizens of East Germany talk about their experiences and feelings in the face of upcoming elections that will lead to reunification with the West. The past is tinged with regret, frustration and anger, while the future is uncertain.
Im Umkreis des Paradieses

Panorama · Germany · Colour · 121 min

In Caazapá, the “city of magic and legends”, two Paraguayan students are searching for happiness, gold and a magic bird. Their European dropout neighbours are hoping for freedom, healing and salvation from Armageddon. Everything has its price.
Imaginarni brojevi

Generation · Serbia, Croatia · Colour · 16 min

Mirna and her father take the bus from their village to the city of Ni&scaron; for her to participate in the national mathematics competition. It is a big day: winning an award could gain her a place at a prestigious school and pave the way to a better future.
In My Neighbourhood

Retrospective · German Democratic Republic 1990 · 5 min

An animated film set in Dresden’s hip-hop milieu, when it was in opposition to the then East German regime. Against a photographic backdrop of dilapidated old buildings, a new youth culture springs up, with graffiti, tags, rap and breakdancing.
Industries of Denial, Stage 10: From Musa Dagh to Port Saïd

Forum Expanded · Finland, Greece, Germany · Colour & Black/White · 28 min

A cartographic installation with 16mm archival photographs and essayistic travelogues, weaving together the Baghdad Railway’s history and the denial of genocidal politics with the migration routes of eastern Anatolian minorities.
Introducing the Queer Cinema Archive!

Retrospective · English · 90 min

The Deutsche Kinemathek and the Queere Kulturstiftung (queer cultural foundation) are working on a Queer Cinema Archive in Berlin, intended to become a place for lively exchange. This is a first peek at developments and an invitation to dialogue.
In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones

Berlinale Classics · India 1989 · 112 min

At architecture college in 1974 New Delhi, student Annie fails his final exams four times because the dean has it in for him. Now he is facing his fifth attempt. This whimsical campus comedy with a screenplay by Arundhati Roy became a cult hit.
Isabel

Panorama · Brazil, France · Colour · 85 min

Isabel, a sommelière in São Paulo, dreams of escaping her boss and opening her own bar. When plans do not go as expected, she must decide whether to halt everything or take bold steps to uncork her fate on her own terms.
Istenmezején 1972–73-ban

Forum · Hungary 1974 · 78 min

Young women in the country, a village disco – idyllic? Far from it. Life in 1970s Hungary already forces 14-year-olds to choose: marriage (for which everything is ready) or profession (for which a woman must fight). Judit Elek: “My most important film.”
Iván & Hadoum

Panorama · Spain, Germany, Belgium · Colour · 100 min

In a greenhouse in southern Spain, Iván falls in love with his newly hired co-worker, Hadoum. But his long-awaited promotion interferes with their relationship, forcing Iván to decide what kind of person he wants to be.
Jafar Panahi: The Power of Storytelling

Berlinale Special · English · 60 min

Jafar Panahi is a world-renowned icon of cinema. The 2015 Golden Bear winner comes to the Berlinale for a conversation with Scott Roxborough about his latest film It Was Just an Accident and his unique brand of storytelling.
Jaripeo

Panorama · Mexico, USA, France · Colour · 70 min

A journey to the hypermasculine rodeos of Michoacán state in Mexico delves into the subconscious of memory, queer desire and longing, leading to a reckoning with the wounds and beauty of a home left behind.
Johanna d’Arc of Mongolia

Retrospective · Federal Republic of Germany 1989 · 166 min

Beguilingly staged, yet with a documentary feel, the film follows four women travelling alone from western Europe and the USA who are taken hostage by a Mongolian princess and establish close contact with the culture of “the most hospitable people on Earth”.
Josephine

Competition · USA · Colour · 119 min

After eight-year-old Josephine accidentally witnesses a crime in Golden Gate Park, she begins to act out violently to protect herself. This emotional trauma leads to conflicts between her parents as they search for justice, and a way for the family to feel safe again.
Joy Boy: A Tribute to Julius Eastman

Forum · Belgium, France, Democratic Republic of the Congo · Colour · 64 min

African American composer Julius Eastman’s music and voice take turns. Sparked by colonial and life history. Raw, radical, crystal clear. A multipart, flashy, transnational-collective performance by six artists. An homage.
Jubei Ninpucho

Berlinale Classics · Japan 1993 · 92 min

During his wanderings through Edo-era Japan, a young ninja warrior meets eight opponents who present him with demonic challenges. An anime film full of action, splatter and fantasy elements that was quickly recognised as a masterpiece of the genre.
Jülapüin Yonna

Generation · Colombia · Colour · 16 min

In the heart of the Alta Guajira, 15-year-old Weinshi, a girl from the Wayuu people whose name means “Time”, begins to hear an ancestral calling in her dreams: the earth must be healed through her people’s sacred dance, the Yonna.
Juice

Retrospective · USA 1992 · 95 min

Spike Lee’s cinematographer Ernest R. Dickerson’s directorial debut. A story of four young Black men in Harlem featuring hip-hop stars Tupac Shakur and Queen Latifah. Quincy dreams of becoming a star DJ, while his pal Bishop wants to be a rich gangster.
Katabasis

Forum Expanded · Germany, Italy · Colour & Black/White · 16 min

In a cave situated between the ridges of a human fingerprint, a primordial encounter with matter, light and sound unfolds.
Kokomo City

Unknown · USA · Black/White · 73 min

A series of moving interviews and encounters with four Black trans sex workers from New York and Georgia in which they talk frankly about their experiences. Questions of belonging and identity within the Black community are candidly addressed.
Kontrewers

Berlinale Shorts · Netherlands, Poland, France · Colour · 21 min

The ghost of a possessed girl, trapped for centuries within a stone, encounters the director’s 102-year-old grandmother. What begins as a haunting becomes a tender dialogue, as archival, staged and documentary footage blur.
Kryshtalevyi Palats

Berlinale Classics · USSR, Ukrainian SSR 1934 · 89 min

After a pacifist artwork incurs the displeasure of totalitarian state authorities, its creator is accused of the murder of a state official. A Ukrainian political drama, influenced by German expressionist films and the Ukrainian avant-garde movement.
Kurtuluş

Competition · Turkey, France, Netherlands, Greece, Sweden, Saudi Arabia · Colour · 120 min

In a remote village, an exiled clan returns, reviving a decades-old land feud. Seized by divine visions, Mesut challenges his brother’s leadership to save his people. Will this new path bring salvation or tragedy?
L’uomo più bello del mondo

Forum · Italy · Colour · 17 min

One member of the family is not remembered – only 25 photos of the uncle who died of AIDS remain. His nephew asks both his mother, who looks back via the pictures, and AI tool Google Vision API, which reads the photo data statistically. Memory cultures.
La casa de los espíritus

Berlinale Special · Chile · Colour · 136 min

Based on Isabel Allende’s book, “The House of the Spirits”, the series follows three generations of the revolutionary and resilient Trueba women through a remote and conservative South American nation of upheaval, disaster and magic.
La double vie de Véronique

Retrospective · France, Poland, Norway 1991 · 98 min

A drama as sensual as it is transcendent. Weronika, a young singer in Poland, feels a close connection to her doppelganger in France. After Weronika dies, the Frenchwoman Véronique also develops an inexplicable sense of their mystical relationship.
La Face cachée de la Terre

Panorama · France · Colour · 68 min

Dimitri loves photographing friends, strangers, lovers. Over the years, images have slipped away from his sight. Behind his camera, he gathers light and bodies, inviting us to gaze toward the hidden face of the Earth.
La hora de irse

Berlinale Shorts · Argentina · Colour · 20 min

Patricio works for his sisters and feels trapped in a life that no longer fits him. Searching for change, he agrees to go on a date with a mysterious man.
La kermesse héroïque

Berlinale Classics · France, Germany 1935 · 117 min

In 1616 Flanders, a city is facing the influx of Spanish troops. The clever townswomen use courage and charm to make sure the occupation is peaceful. A nimble costume drama with visual references to Flemish painting.
Lady

Panorama · United Kingdom · Colour · 93 min

In the sprawling African metropolis of Lagos, a fiercely independent young female taxi driver meets a band of flamboyant sex workers whose sisterhood pulls her into both danger and joy, setting her on a journey toward her own transformation.
Lali

Panorama · Pakistan · Colour · 116 min

Lali is a darkly comic tale of Zeba and Sajawal, bound by an inherited union. As desire and superstition surface, fate tightens its grip, their bodies and lives begin to shift, and the story turns red.
Land Invaders

Forum Expanded · Canada, Mexico, USA · Colour

Land Invaders is an 8-bit video game that reimagines the history and legacy of colonialism, letting players symbolically confront intergenerational trauma through arcade-style gameplay.
Lángbogár a zsebemben

Generation · Hungary · Colour · 10 min

A little boy, bored with building a bed, seeks something more exciting. A mischievous fire creature lures him into a magical mushroom world, where anything is possible and adventure awaits – beyond his father’s reach.
Leaving Las Vegas

Berlinale Classics · USA 1995 · 112 min

Leaving Las Vegas is a heady cocktail of unsentimental boozer film and touching love story. His portrayal of an alcoholic who sets out to drink himself to death in the neon-lit Sin City of the title garnered Nicolas Cage an Oscar.
Les âmes du Fouta

Berlinale Shorts · France, Senegal · Colour · 18 min

Dembe died of an overdose in the distant metropolis of Dakar. His father refuses to bury him in the family graveyard in the village, believing that his soul has become “impure”. Dembe’s mother decides to take matters into her own hands.
Les juifs riches

Berlinale Shorts · France · Colour & Black/White · 31 min

“In English, we say ‘rich, richer, the richest’. In Yiddish, we say ‘Rach (which means rich), Miè Guizoukt (which means: may it happen to me), A Ganèf (what a thief!)’. A film that will almost make you Jewish...” – Yolande Zauberman
Let There Be Whistleblowers

Forum Expanded · USA · Short Film · 18 min

A train passes through a tunnel and hurtles on to a station. Time and space are toyed with. Composed to the first part of “Drumming” by Steve Reich. Presented in memory of Flo and Ken Jacobs.
Let’s Talk About (Short) Films! Pluralistic Discourse in Film Criticism

Berlinale Shorts · English · 120 min

An event of Berlinale Shorts and the Embassy of Canada in Berlin, hosted by Anna Henckel-Donnersmarck.  Admission free. Registration via Guestoo is mandatory; participation is subject to prior approval of registration.
Liebe, Eifersucht und Rache

Unknown · Germany 1991 · 7 min

This provocative, ironic and playful film from the early 1990s focuses on subtitles and other marginal phenomena, making an entertaining attempt to intertwine the various layers of film, visual language, speech and mood.
Liebhaberinnen

Forum · Germany, Luxembourg · Colour · 98 min

An invisible bond links a young cam girl and a trade fair hostess, making the impossibility of female satisfaction all too apparent. Constant disquiet pervades this Elfriede Jelinek adaptation, fuelled by the dismal promises of late capitalism.
Lola rennt

Retrospective · Germany 1998 · 81 min

Lola has 20 minutes to come up with 100,000 marks or a gangster will kill her boyfriend. The film is split into three segments, each depicting a possible way to get the money. A flash-forward photo story – a post-modern bricolage as cinematic loop.
Lola und Bilidikid

Retrospective · Germany 1999 · 95 min

Lola is part of “The Migrant Workers”, a Turkish drag queen troupe who perform to great acclaim. Lola’s gay little brother Murat, on the other hand, is just beginning his search for an identity. An intense family drama set in “Anatolian” Berlin-Kreuzberg.
London

Panorama · Austria · Colour · 122 min

Bobby drives back and forth between Vienna and Salzburg, giving lifts to strangers on the way, sharing conversations that drift from the mundane to the deeply personal. In this tender portrait of today’s Europe, anonymity and warmth still go hand in hand.
Lord of the Flies

Berlinale Special · United Kingdom · Colour · 115 min

Innocence descends into savagery when a group of English schoolboys become desert island castaways in the first television adaptation of William Golding’s landmark dystopian classic.
Lost in the 90s: Film Heritage in Transition

Retrospective · English · 60 min

The “Lost in the 90s” Retrospective tackles aesthetics and the zeitgeist, but also the lost heritage of films from the post-communist era. Heleen Gerritsen talks to archivists and representatives of film heritage institutions in central and eastern Europe.
Love in Numbers: Creating a Short Film Canon from Scratch

Unknown · English · 90 min

Short film lovers worldwide were invited to nominate 10 films under 60 minutes that they consider the “greatest” ever. This resulted in a ranked list of 104 titles. But what now? A collective conversation about pros, cons, and potentials of such a canon.
Love Your Nails!

Forum · Germany · Colour & Black/White · 9 min

Cheekily inverted gender roles, history revisited, empowerment. The weapons here: long fingernails and AI counterimages that serve to expand the visual canon of imagined collectives. Things never archived become visible and culturally imaginable.
Lust

Forum · Bulgaria, Denmark, Sweden · Colour · 77 min

With formal rigour and subtly playing with genre, body and soul, this story of knots and liberation follows Lilian, who is as inscrutable as her desires, constrained by a pact of celibacy. When her father dies, she returns to the place of her past.
Mambo Kids

Generation · Italy · Colour · 20 min

On a quiet late-summer day, Alessandro and Flavio set out in search of the last secrets of their city. Sitting on the branch of a large cherry tree, they wait for the night. A beer with friends, mopeds heading home, and a farewell.
Masayume

Forum · Japan · Colour & Black/White · 110 min

After her mother’s death, Nao retreats to a Zen temple to wrestle with grief. Blending family archives, hand-drawn animation and performance art, this seductively meditative documentary explores suffering, and the gentle art of transcending it.
Matapanki

Generation · Chile · Black/White · 71 min

After gaining alcohol-fuelled superpowers, Ricardo, a young punk from the outskirts, sets out to change society. But one brutal mistake ignites an international conflict, with him at the centre of the storm.
Meet the Berlinale Programmers!

Unknown · English · 110 min

On the last Friday morning of the festival, the programmers from across the Berlinale sections invite the audience to join them for coffee and croissants at the Berlinale HUB to share their impressions and experiences of the past festival week.
Meet the Team of Rosebush Pruning

Unknown · English · 50 min

Karim Aïnouz is bringing his creative family to the Berlinale HUB on Sunday morning to talk in depth about this deliciously sordid family tale.
MegatrashwannabebigstarXD

Forum · Germany · Colour · 7 min

What connects the clones of Paris Hilton and rapper Haftbefehl and why are people sick of performing on social media? We find out from Leandra’s questionnaire, which is answered by a chatbot fed by Elisa. How to appear online? Be a hottie! Frindz??!
Meine Frau weint

Competition · Germany, France · Colour · 93 min

An ordinary workday on a building site. Forty-year-old crane operator Thomas receives a call from his wife: he has to pick her up from the hospital. Once there, he finds her sitting alone on a park bench, crying.
Members of the Problematic Family

Forum · India · Colour · 105 min

A man dies young. Funeral rites – yes; mourning – not so much. A death that stirs and shakes things up. A film that shows the violence of family relationships with uncanny subtlety and verve, the pendulum of void and solace. What a debut feature!
Memories of a Window

Generation · USA, Iran · Colour & Black/White · 19 min

Following crackdowns on protests in Iran, civilians begin documenting the unrest from behind windows. When a woman is shot while recording, a film student writes her a letter raising the question: Can a revolution emerge from behind windows?
Metanoia

Forum Expanded · Finland, Germany, Spain · Black/White

A live expanded cinema performance: a realm of light and shadow blending with sound textures. Moving images and material collages create a dreamlike landscape, awakening something undiscovered and untamed.
Mil nubes de paz cercan el cielo, amor, jamás acabarás de ser amor

Unknown · Mexico · Black/White · 83 min

Seventeen-year-old Gerardo hopelessly wanders the streets after a break-up. He is tormented by images: every male body reminds him of his lover. Gerardo desperately seeks to cling to the dying embers of their love …
Mint

Berlinale Special · United Kingdom · Colour · 113 min

A love story about a crime family. And not your usual gangster series – no shootouts or drug deals. Instead, the story is told through the eyes (and the imagination) of the family’s daughter, who is desperately searching for love.
Miriam

Berlinale Shorts · Mexico · Black/White · 20 min

A film letter from the director to her aunt, who was murdered by her partner. The filmmaker talks about the aftermath of the femicide, her grief, the family’s persistent fear and how she has managed to break the silence to open a space for healing.
Mit einem freundlichen Gruss

Berlinale Shorts · Germany · Black/White · 14 min

More than 400 dusty job application letters in an abandoned GDR factory tell of the personal circumstances and memories of a generation. Wishes and fears are laid bare in the effort to find a place in the free market economy.
Mixed Feelings: Empathy for the Monster in Genre

Unknown · English · 90 min

Berlinale Talents alumni Hanna Bergholm (Nightborn) and Edwin (Sleep No More) discuss their approaches to genre filmmaking and how they create empathy for their monsters.
Mondial 2010

Unknown · Lebanon · Colour · 19 min

A travel film along a trajectory that does not actually allow travel. A gay couple in a place where homosexuality is a punishable felony. Mondial 2010 confronts institutional boundaries in today’s Middle East.
Monster Pabrik Rambut

Berlinale Special · Indonesia, Singapore, Japan, Germany, France · Colour · 96 min

The world is forcing humans into excessive work. For the sake of the future and their loved ones, they sacrifice sleep to keep on working. It is at this moment that a dark figure appears and takes possession of their bodies.
Moscas

Competition · Mexico · Black/White · 99 min

Olga rents out a room to a man whose wife has been admitted to a hospital nearby. However, the man has a nine-year-old son he has been sneaking into the room, which leads to Olga’s carefully controlled world shifting as their lives become intertwined.
Mouse

Panorama · USA · Colour · 120 min

Callie and Minnie’s relationship is suddenly upended at the start of the summer before their senior year of high school. Left rudderless without her charismatic best friend, Minnie starts to form a complicated friendship with Callie’s mother.
MUSCLE

Forum Expanded · Nigeria, Italy, Germany · Colour · 22 min

MUSCLE is an intimate portrait of Lagos bodybuilders. Close-ups of inflated muscles, bulging veins and glistening skin blur into abstract forms, reflecting on the shifting embodiment and representation of the Black male body.
My Brother’s Wedding

Forum · USA, Germany 1983- · Colour · 81 min

South Central L.A., the 80s: family, friends, neighbours and class relations are all a source of worry for the young Pierce. Following Killer of Sheep, Burnett’s second film wrote Black Cinema (and Forum) history thanks to its social profundity.
My Name

Forum · South Korea · Colour · 120 min

Young-oak is a boy with a girl’s name at a boys’ school rich in testosterone. His mother is not concerned. Veteran director Chung Ji-young allows the violence of South Korea’s early years to slam into this complex identity drama with the force of a comet.
Narciso

Panorama · Paraguay, Germany, Uruguay, Brazil, Portugal, Spain, France · Colour · 101 min

Paraguay, 1959. The charismatic Narciso returns from Buenos Aires with rock ’n’ roll in his veins. Under the suffocating military dictatorship, he becomes a music sensation and a symbol of freedom while the regime consolidates its power.
Narrative

Forum Expanded · Thailand, South Korea, Japan · Colour · 49 min

The film stages a fictional trial around the 2010 Bangkok massacre, blending witness testimony with the filmmaker’s research. A meditation on truth and justice in the absence of official accountability.
Ni chui do wo chui si

Generation · Taiwan · Colour · 18 min

Rong Chen would like to keep her place in the recorder group, Shao Yu wants to give up playing. She asks him for tips, and by practicing together, they not only improve their skills, but also learn something much more important from each other.
Ni’er

Generation · People’s Republic of China · Colour · 20 min

Seventeen-year-old Ni’er feels trapped between her monotonous daily grind at a petrol station and the weight of family expectations. A fleeting encounter with a female truck driver radiating freedom and self-determination sparks a quiet revolution within her.
Nina Roza

Competition · Canada, Italy, Bulgaria, Belgium · Colour · 103 min

An art dealer travels from Quebec to the homeland he abandoned to see the paintings of an elusive pre-teen prodigy in the Bulgarian countryside. It is only by viewing her work firsthand that he will be able to determine if she is a fraud, or a genius.
No Good Men

Berlinale Special · Germany, France, Norway, Denmark, Afghanistan · Colour · 103 min

Naru, the only camerawoman at Kabul TV, is convinced there are no good men in Afghanistan. But when a reporter takes her on an assignment just before the Taliban’s return, sparks fly between them – and she begins to question this belief.
No Salgas

Generation · Dominican Republic · Colour · 105 min

After her girlfriend’s death, Liz hides her true self until a weekend trip with friends awakens forbidden desires. The result is paranoia and violence that consumes the group as Liz’s secret unleashes a deadly force.
Nosso segredo

Unknown · Brazil, Portugal · Colour · 108 min

A family drifts through their home in silence, struggling to rebuild their lives after a recent loss. Each mourns alone, until the youngest child reveals a secret that enables them to realise that they must come together with love and courage to defy grief.
Not a Hero

Generation · India, Singapore · Colour · 97 min

Exiled from city comforts to his ancestral village, Mivan meets his embittered aunt, befriends a horse and joins the local kids on wild adventures, discovering the beauty of life and a courage he never knew he had.
Nous sommes les fruits de la forêt

Forum · Cambodia, France · Colour · 87 min

The Indigenous Bunong live with their ancestors, spirits, skills. Modernity upsets the balance, they lose the forest – of whose ownership they have no conception. Lesson in globalisation. Rice grain essence. Now/then. Split screen. Rithy Panh!
Nursery Rhymes. (Holy) Water

Forum Expanded · Austria, Italy · Colour · 4 min

“Rock, water, fire, air…” – the rhythmic singing of a children’s song echoes on. This film intertwines play and the memory of the forced baptism of three African girls in 1855 Bruneck, Tyrol, into acts of resistance.
Öömõtted

Generation · Estonia · Colour · 16 min

When a boy has trouble falling asleep at night, he begins to ponder his place in the world. If the Earth is just a small marble flying through space, and he is only one child among many, what is the meaning of his existence?
Östliche Landschaft

Retrospective · Germany 1991 · 13 min

Footage shot at a garbage dump near East Berlin make manifest the end of East Germany and the collapse of the Soviet regime. The camera ferrets out symbols of the foundering state and the residue of private households.
Oghneyet Touha Al Hazina

Forum Expanded · Egypt 1972 · 12 min

*** We regret to inform you that the film Oghneyet Touha Al Hazina will not be screened as part of the Forum Expanded programme. Cimatheque – Alternative Film Center, along with the family of the director, have decided to withdraw it from the festival. ***
Only Rebels Win

Panorama · France, Lebanon, Qatar · Colour · 98 min

Suzanne and Osmane meet in crisis-ridden Beirut. Osmane is a young Sudanese man without papers, searching for a better future; Suzanne is a widow with Palestinian roots more than twice his age. Against all odds, they fall in love.
Oranzhevye zhilety

Retrospective · Belarus, Germany 1993 · 66 min

A radical cinematic letter about the hardships facing women in the collapsing Soviet Union. Shot in Belarus, Tajikistan, Ukraine and Siberia, these interviews and observations document the exploitation and repression of an unwavering patriarchal doctrine.
Oupatevak het tam phnom

Berlinale Shorts · Cambodia · Colour · 21 min

Years ago, a helicopter crashed under mysterious circumstances high in the mountains. Climbing the slopes to investigate the accident, a journalist and a soldier encounter a shaman deep in the forest who tells them about ancient rain rituals.
Panda

Forum · Singapore, Hong Kong, China · Colour & Black/White · 146 min

Four wraithlike figures of different ages and pasts, haunted by memory, drift along Nanjing’s wintry riverbanks. They share an abandoned ruin where talk turns to poetry, painterly pauses, instrumental reveries and the unabashed group therapy of karaoke.
Panelstory, aneb jak se rodí sídliště

Berlinale Classics · Czechoslovakia 1979 · 100 min

A social satire about the difficulties of life and community in a newly-built, but already shabby housing estate on the fringes of Prague. The film was not officially approved until two years after its completion and has now been digitally restored.
Panorama Audience Award – Documentary

Panorama

All Berlinale festival-goers can vote for the Panorama Audience Award by filling in a voting card. The prize was initiated in 1999 by the radioeins radio station and is presented by radioeins, the rbb Fernsehen TV channel and Panorama.
Panorama Audience Award – Fiction Film

Panorama

All Berlinale festival-goers can vote for the Panorama Audience Award by filling in a voting card. The prize was initiated in 1999 by the radioeins radio station and is presented by radioeins, the rbb Fernsehen TV channel and Panorama.
Papaya

Generation · Brazil · Colour · 74 min

Papaya, a tiny seed in the Amazon rainforest who is passionate about flying, must keep moving to avoid taking root. But when she discovers the power of her roots, it triggers a revolution that transforms her world and fulfils her dreams in an unexpected way.
Paradise

Panorama · Canada, France, Ghana · Colour · 90 min

The enigmatic captain of a burning cargo ship binds together the fates of two families; one in the bustling Ghanaian city of Accra, the other in a quiet Canadian town.
Party Girl

Retrospective · USA 1995 · 94 min

After she is arrested for organising an illegal dance party, a madcap New Yorker works in a public library to pay off her bail money. Parker Posey is brilliant as the “Gen X Holly Golightly” in this indie version of a screwball comedy.
Perspectives Directors’ Exchange: Visual Storytelling

Unknown · English · 50 min

Perspectives selection committee member Jessica Kiang welcomes Dara Van Dusen, Kai Stänicke and Rafael Manuel to discuss their approach to visual storytelling and give insight into their artistic process.
Phi Pattana

Forum Expanded · Thailand · Colour & Black/White · 17 min

Corroded pixels struggle to form an image as they move through Cold War promises of development in rural Thailand, haunted by archival voices.
Piedras preciosas

Forum · Colombia, Portugal · Colour · 70 min

Machado is harvesting grapes in France when he is asked to carry out a tricky mission: to steal an emerald back home in Colombia. A tale full of swindles that swings elegantly between bourgeois greed and the rigours of doing what needs to be done.
Pink Schlemmer

Forum Expanded · Canada · Colour · 13 min

In 2024, a deteriorated 16mm print of a film about Oskar Schlemmer’s Bauhaus dances resurfaced, now awash in vibrant pink from chemical ageing. Oliver Husain and collaborators use this flamboyant tint to reimagine the 1925 choreographies.
Plan contraplan

Berlinale Shorts · Romania · Colour & Black/White · 22 min

During the 1980s, the American journalist Edward Serotta documented the harsh realities and Jewish life in socialist Romania. The secret services clandestinely accompanied him on his journey. A photo essay from opposing perspectives.
Playback. Ensayo de una despedida

Unknown · Argentina · Colour · 14 min

“La Delpi”, the sole survivor of a group of transgender women and drag queens, remembers how lipstick, playback performances and improvised stage outfits galvanised the community and helped them in their struggle against AIDS and police violence.
Prénoms

Forum · France · Colour · 82 min

Flowers as a gift for guests, the Latin alphabet as a form of order. A film of rules which varies, multiplies and expands into a novel of nomadic world knowledge as it narrates. Nurith Aviv visits her friends and asks them about their names – c’est ça!
Prinz in Hölleland

Retrospective · Germany 1993 · 96 min

A maverick living in a trailer in Kreuzberg has a heroin habit that wrecks his relationship and, in the end, his entire precarious existence. The film is a graphic, sometimes extreme portrayal of the queer, off-the-grid milieu in gritty West Berlin.
Quand tu écouteras cette chanson

Forum · France · Colour & Black/White · 54 min

Director Achache and writer Lafon engage with Anne Frank by way of smart mental jumps, hand-picked footage, refinement and breathtaking montage, liberating this symbolic Shoah figure from cliché. Cinema of remembrance, complex and empathetic.
Quatro Meninas

Generation · Brazil, Netherlands · Colour · 89 min

Four enslaved girls dream of freedom. When a turn of events puts their lives at risk, they decide to run away. Their mistresses discover the plan – and to the girls' surprise insist on going with them.
Queen at Sea

Competition · United Kingdom, USA · Colour · 121 min

As advanced dementia erodes an older woman’s ability to communicate her inner life, her husband and daughter struggle to act in her best interests, navigating love and the fragile boundaries between care, protection and autonomy.
Raspad

Retrospective · USSR, Ukrainian SSR, USA 1990 · 95 min

After the nuclear meltdown in Chernobyl, a journalist attempts to report from the site of the catastrophe. Raspad is an unusual disaster film, with decay raging on many levels, interspersed with astonishing breaks from reality.
Ravalear

Berlinale Special · Spain · Colour · 95 min

In Barcelona’s El Raval neighbourhood, the family-run restaurant “Can Mosques” faces eviction after an investment fund buys the building. The family’s fight to survive escalates, pushing them to cross any and all boundaries.
Rebellion Revisited – Haile Gerima and Charles Burnett in conversation

Forum · Event · 90 min

A talk with two legends of Black Cinema about their work and time as part of the so-called L.A. Rebellion, about New Black Cinema and that of the present day, about Hollywood and cinema in the face of racism, colonialism and fascism – now and then.
Reframing Stolen Narratives: The Cinema of Warwick Thornton

Unknown · English · 90 min

Premiering his new film Wolfram in Competition, Warwick Thornton joins Berlinale Talents to reflect on his work as both director and cinematographer.
Rewinding the 90s: Pop Culture, Music Videos & Visual Trends

Retrospective · German · 60 min

In this pop culture rewind, host Jenni Zylka talks to Nico Beyer, Nilz Bokelberg, and Laura Russ about the 90s’ aesthetic, formative music videos and visual codes around MTV, the rave and underground culture, and their aftereffects.
Riding Time

Generation · United Kingdom, France · Colour · 19 min

Horse-obsessed Jaleal comes of age on the West Yorkshire moors while carrying forward the ancient cavalry sport of Neza Bazi. Filmed over three summers, this joyful portrait blows the dust off traditional tales of Empire, migration and belonging.
River Dreams

Forum · Kazakhstan, Switzerland, United Kingdom · Colour · 98 min

Young women imagine themselves as a river: what starts off as a poetic metaphor is linked to images of landscape and becomes a many-voiced narration, radically morphing into a political statement. The Kazakh woman, she might prefer living without man.
Rose

Competition · Austria, Germany · Black/White · 93 min

In the early 17th century, a soldier arrives at an isolated Protestant village in Germany claiming to be the heir to an abandoned farmstead. Even though he proves to be a good man, the villagers’ suspicions about his identity grow and they force a reckoning.
Rosebush Pruning

Competition · Italy, Germany, Spain, United Kingdom · Colour · 94 min

In a Spanish villa, American siblings Jack, Ed, Anna and Robert wallow in isolation and their inherited fortune. When Jack wants to move in with his girlfriend and Ed uncovers the truth about their mother’s death, the fabric of the family begins to unravel.
Roya

Panorama · Germany, Czechia, Luxembourg, Iran · Colour · 92 min

Roya, an Iranian teacher imprisoned for her political beliefs, is faced with a choice: make a forced televised confession, or remain confined to her three-square-metre cell.
Rumaragasa

Panorama · Philippines · Colour · 87 min

The mid-1990s on the Filipino island of Sibuyan. After he has been raped, a young man retreats into a world of silence and isolation. Then he witnesses a plane crash and embarks on a quest for justice.
Saccharine

Berlinale Special · Australia · Colour · 112 min

Hana, a lovelorn medical student, becomes terrorised by a sinister force after taking part in an obscure weight-loss craze: eating human ashes.
Safe Exit

Panorama · Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Qatar, Germany · Colour · 113 min

A psychological thriller following Samaan, a young security guard who, like many of his generation, is struggling with trauma. His parents were murdered in the religious and ethnic violence that has been unfolding in the Arab region for decades.
Sandiwara

Berlinale Special · USA, Malaysia · Colour · 11 min

Michelle Yeoh’s performance is transformative in this short film collaboration with Oscar-winning director Sean Baker. A celebration of womanhood, cultural identity, culinary heritage and independent cinema. Screens with Everything Everywhere All at Once on Feb 13.
Scorching

Generation · People’s Republic of China · Colour · 18 min

Li Yan’s life is as regimented as the production lines in the local poultry factory. Her grandmother is determined to get her a job there, but Li Yan refuses. Obsessed with the mystery of life and creation, she secretly attempts to hatch a stolen egg.
Se eu fosse vivo... vivia

Panorama · Brazil · Colour · 101 min

Gilberto and Jacira promised to grow old together – for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. Till death them do part.
Shanghai Daughter

Panorama · People’s Republic of China · Colour · 94 min

A Shanghai woman journeys alone to a rubber plantation in southwest China, where her late father was sent during the Cultural Revolution. As she searches for a mysterious woman, some strangers unexpectedly drift into her path.
Shibire

Panorama · Japan · Colour · 118 min

A boy who no longer speaks, shaped by a tyrannical father and a mother he both resents and loves, grows up on Japan’s northern coast. With nowhere to belong, he returns to seek his father and sets his fate in motion.
Siri Hustvedt – Dance Around the Self

Panorama · Germany, Switzerland · Colour · 110 min

Sabine Lidl presents Siri Hustvedt’s journey from her first novel to being a leading voice in contemporary literature – a film about feminist perspectives, Hustvedt’s soulmate Paul Auster, and the power of thought.
Slacker

Retrospective · USA 1990 · 100 min

An improvised circle dance of some 100 players on the streets of Austin, Texas. The fanciful experiences and absurd dialogue of these young “slackers” turn Richard Linklater’s first theatrical outing into a manifesto for Generation X.
So schnell es geht nach Istanbul

Retrospective · German Democratic Republic, Germany 1991 · 45 min

A young Turkish man working in West Berlin looks for a girlfriend in East Berlin, so he can move there and save up money faster for a return to Istanbul. This culture-clash comedy was Andreas Dresen’s graduation film at the Konrad Wolf film school.
Solidary AI?

Forum · Event · 120 min

The “Solidary AI?” panel invites the audience and the filmmakers of the “AI Realisms” short film programme to reflect on AI as an aesthetic, political and social production machine and the clash between image description and image calculation.
Soumsoum, la nuit des astres

Competition · France, Chad · Colour · 101 min

Seventeen-year-old Kellou has been gifted with supernatural powers she does not understand. Her disquiet and uncertainty only change when she meets Aya. It is an encounter with destiny that forges a mystical world where the visible and invisible converge.
Speedy!

Generation · South Korea · Colour · 17 min

Seoul, 1989. Jung-min wants to become a speed-reading prodigy, just like Dong-hyun – the coolest guy in town who can finish an entire book in just 60 seconds! But things do not go exactly as she expected.
Spî

Generation · Iraqi Kurdistan Region · Colour · 12 min

In a small village classroom, a teacher often transforms the blackboard with a simple white sheet. When it is taken for a burial rite, the children refuse to let their moment slip away – and set out to reclaim what they were promised.
Staatsschutz

Panorama · Germany · Colour · 113 min

After surviving a racist attack, state prosecutor Seyo Kim takes her own case to court – confronting both the perpetrators and a justice system that turns a blind eye to right-wing extremism.
Stallion y la bola de cristal

Berlinale Shorts · Spain · Colour · 19 min

In his dark, silent room, a secluded teenager casts a spell. As hallucinations warp his reality, a bubble threatens to burst. A poetic fever dream exploring queer longing and the magic and mysteries of adolescence.
Sunny Dancer

Generation · United Kingdom · Colour · 106 min

As if conquering cancer wasn’t hard enough, 17-year-old Ivy’s parents sign her up to spend her summer at what she calls “chemo camp”, where she manages to find unexpected friends in a group of misfits and has a summer she’ll never forget.
Sunny Point

Retrospective · Germany 1995 · 97 min

A satire about a West Berlin commercial producer with an East German background. To stave off his company’s bankruptcy and collect a second round of Western aid money, he “repeats” his flight from East Berlin – on, of all days, November 9, 1989.
Szenario

Forum · Germany · Colour · 91 min

In Europe’s biggest military model city, war is not just rehearsed, but also directly taught. Marie Wilke’s sober, focused observation shows the Bundeswehr navigating how to deal with the past, adapt to the future and present itself.
Tagesspiegel Readers' Award

Forum · 120 min

Since the 2007 Berlinale, the Berlin-based national daily newspaper “Tagesspiegel” has awarded a Readers’ Prize. The jury consists of seven members and the prize is given to the best film in the Berlinale Forum.
Take Me Home

Unknown · USA · Colour · 91 min

Anna, a 38-year-old woman with a cognitive disability, cares for her ageing adoptive parents until a Florida heatwave shatters their family’s fragile routine. This intimate drama examines the shifting demands placed on a uniquely vulnerable family.
Találkozás

Forum · Hungary 1963 · 22 min

A shy encounter. A blind date on a park bench. Budapest, 1963. The focus is on a woman who works as a nurse, knows what life is and is looking for more. Elek underpins her fiction with documentary glances whose openness is unbelievable precision.
TAXI MOTO

Berlinale Shorts · Switzerland, France · Colour · 21 min

A director has to reimagine his film – a love story between two men – because he was not allowed to shoot it in his home country. In a different location, he finds a new lead actor and, together with him, a tender gesture of resistance.
Teddy Directors’ Exchange: Cinematic Inheritance, Pioneers and Emerging Voices

Unknown · English · 50 min

From trailblazing filmmakers to emerging voices, we reflect on the works that continue to shape today’s cinematic landscape. We celebrate those films that have led the way with resistance, imagination and courage, and consider the paths that lie ahead.
Teddy Directors’ Exchange: Standing in the Way of Control

Unknown · English · 50 min

What is the significance of films that challenge racist structures and genre norms and explore queer resistance as well as gender and body politics in our current cultural and political context? What impact might they have beyond the screen?
Teddy Talents Talks: Confusion as Catalyst

Unknown · English · 90 min

Five film professionals explore how queer cinema harnesses ambiguity, resists categorization, and uses formal disruption to generate new ways of seeing from the margins.
Tegenwoordig heet iedereen Sorry

Generation · Belgium, Netherlands, Germany · Colour · 87 min

On a sweltering summer day, Bianca feels unseen by her parents. An unexpected encounter with her favourite female actor, Billie King, helps her to find herself. A tender, imaginative tale about dreams and carving out a space for yourself in life.
The Ballad of Judas Priest

Berlinale Special · USA · Colour · 98 min

The Ballad of Judas Priest follows heavy metal pioneers Judas Priest and their half-century journey from working-class origins in England to their recent induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
The Day of Wrath: Tales from Tripoli

Forum · Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Qatar · Colour · 120 min

The story of a city and its uprisings. From the 1940s into the present, Rania Rafei follows Tripoli, Lebanon’s second-biggest city, over the years, moving through different generations and factions. An act of political tenderness.
The Dislocation of Amber

Forum Expanded · Sudan 1975 · 32 min

*** We regret to inform you that the film The Dislocation of Amber will not be screened as part of the Forum Expanded programme. Cimatheque – Alternative Film Center, along with the family of the director, have decided to withdraw it from the festival. ***
The Education of Jane Cumming

Panorama · Germany, Switzerland, United Kingdom · Colour · 114 min

Edinburgh, 1810. Two female teachers find themselves at the centre of a scandal when one of their pupils accuses them of having a love affair. A drama about prejudice, survival and the courage to stand up for the truth.
The Lights, They Fall

Generation · Germany · Colour · 87 min

Sixteen-year-old Ilay drifts through the summer on the outskirts of Berlin while a palliative nurse accompanies his ailing mother during her last days.
The Loneliest Man in Town

Competition · Austria · Colour · 86 min

Blues musician Al Cook lives in an apartment filled with memories. Outside, the world carries on without him. But when his home is slated for demolition, out of the ruins of his existence, a long-forgotten dream suddenly resurfaces.
The Moment

Panorama · USA · Colour · 103 min

A mockumentary about the highs and lows of success. Charli xcx does battle with immense expectations – both from others and herself … Aidan Zamiri presents the musician in her most personal role yet.
The Moths & the Flame

Forum · USA · Colour · 97 min

In Pahokee, Florida, the myth of the absent Black father is contradicted every day: housework, children’s birthdays, neighbourhood, care. In vignettes brimming with solidarity, Contento traces out his protagonists’ self-confidence. Calm and attentive.
The Only Living Pickpocket in New York

Berlinale Special · USA · Colour · 88 min

Harry is an ageing pickpocket struggling in a changed New York City. When he unwittingly steals a valuable USB stick, he finds himself in a race against time to return the loot or face the rage of a vengeful crime family.
The Other Side of the Sun

Panorama · Belgium, France, Saudi Arabia · Colour · 92 min

After the fall of Assad’s regime, five survivors return to the former torture prison of Saidnaya to reenact what they experienced there during their incarceration. They reclaim their voices and bear witness for those who can no longer speak for themselves.
The Recce

Forum Expanded · United Kingdom, Germany · Colour · 15 min

Drawing on a location test filmed in Uganda and an email exchange with the scout, this short film captures cinema’s ties to land and its entanglement with colonial imaginaries, binding the fiction of filmmaking with state-building.
The Story of Documentary Film

Berlinale Special · United Kingdom · Colour & Black/White · 240 min

From Mark Cousins (The Story of Film) comes a definitive history of documentary: tracing the evolution of the genre across time, encompassing landmark works and hidden treasures, while revealing how the form has helped us to see and make sense of our world.
The sun that fell into the water

Forum Expanded · Germany, Slovenia · Colour & Black/White

A power plant on Maribor river island in present-day Slovenia, built under German occupation, now powers a computing centre monitoring extinction. Thermal and infrared visions reveal lingering presences, blurring the line between living and non-living.
The Testament of Ann Lee

Berlinale Special · USA, United Kingdom · Colour · 136 min

The extraordinary true legend of Ann Lee, founder of the Shakers, who preached gender and social equality. Revered by her followers, her rapturous quest to build a utopia comes to life through song and movement.
The Thread

Generation · United Kingdom · Colour · 15 min

Grace is born of dual heritage: she has a white British mother and a Black Jamaican father. As she reaches her early teens, Grace takes her identity into her own hands and begins to navigate how to exist as a young woman, fully Black, fully white.
The Valley where LOAB Lives

Forum · Austria · Colour & Black/White · 21 min

A female character born from code, LOAB leads us through six iconic horror eras from Nosferatu to Get Out: a prompted being, cursed by design. Whoever knows her becomes part of the algorithm; whoever resists will be punished. An AI meta genre essay.
The Watermelon Woman

Unknown · USA 1996 · 83 min

In this riotous highlight of Black lesbian cinema, a young filmmaker researches the life of a forgotten Black bit player in old Hollywood movies. The film won the Teddy Award for Best Feature Film at the 1996 Berlinale.
The Fascination of Music: How Sound in Films Makes the Difference

Unknown · English · 50 min

In this conversation, film director and composer Koxi (Women as Lovers) and film composer Freya Arde (Everyone’s Sorry Nowadays) give insights into their creative process, film music and experiences in the industry. Hosted by Katja Lucker.
The Identity of a Voice: In Conversation with Hiam Abbass

Unknown · English · 90 min

Hiam Abbass reflects on her multifaceted career. She addresses the process of how she selects her projects, how she gives her characters a voice, and her collaborations with acclaimed directors, including Hany Abu-Assad, Annemarie Jacir, Steven Spielberg and Denis Villeneuve.
The Moment: Aidan Zamiri on Chaos, Brat and Creative Discomfort

Unknown · English · 90 min

Director Aidan Zamiri breaks down his long running creative partnership with Charli xcx and how it deepens his film’s playful discomfort, shaping a funhouse mirror world where authenticity and performance blur.
The Power of Discomfort: Crafting Sentimental Value

Unknown · English · 90 min

Academy Award-nominated editor Olivier Bugge Coutté and Berlinale Talents alum Eskil Vogt discuss their collaboration with Joachim Trier, another alum of Berlinale Talents, on Sentimental Value.
The radioeins Bärentalk live from the Berlinale HUB with Knut Elstermann and the Berlinale award winners

Unknown · German · 270 min

Following the Berlinale’s Award Ceremony, radioeins is broadcasting the “Bärentalk” radio programme with Knut Elstermann interviewing the award winners. Tickets are exclusively available via a raffle on the radioeins.de/berlinalequiz website.
The Weight

Berlinale Special · Germany, USA · Colour · 115 min

Oregon, 1933. Samuel Murphy is torn from his daughter and sent to a brutal work camp. Warden Clancy tempts him with early release if he smuggles gold through the deadly wilderness. How far will Murphy go to see his child again?
This Desirable Device

Forum Expanded · Serbia, Germany · Colour & Black/White · 17 min

Exploring the power that comes with language itself, the worth of the device, not the meaning, an artist considers the actual price of emigrating into a “better life”, while working in a restrictive political climate.
This Suffocating Now

Forum Expanded · Germany · Colour · 16 min

At a time when elements of fascisation are becoming ever more apparent, ever more pervasive, artist Vika Kirchenbauer takes a personal look at what is in the air in present-day Germany.
Tito pro drugi put među Srbima

Retrospective · Yugoslavia (until 1992) 1994 · 41 min

An actor dresses up as the former Yugoslavian ruler, Tito. Walking around Belgrade, he talks to passers-by, evoking a variety of reactions. This “happening” triggers heated discussions, documented on film.
To Write From Memory

Unknown · USA · Colour · 19 min

A young person’s transition is steadily progressing, despite their mother’s vocal objections. To Write From Memory is an essay on moving forward, and the inevitability of confronting one’s own past in the process.
Tomboy

Unknown · France · Colour · 81 min

Laure is new in town. She just moved in with her family in the heart of summer. When she meets Lisa and a group of kids they assume she is a boy. She decides to become Michael.
Traces

Panorama · Ukraine, Poland · Colour · 85 min

Despite the deep traces of trauma caused by sexual violence and torture at the hands of Russian troops, Ukrainian women survivors are uniting to break stigma and silence, transforming their testimonies into a powerful form of resistance.
Tristan Forever

Panorama · Switzerland · Colour · 90 min

For 30 years, a doctor from Paris has maintained a friendship with a fisherman on Tristan da Cunha, the most isolated inhabited island in the world. Now he travels back one more time, with the plan to stay there for good.
Trop c’est trop

Panorama · France, Democratic Republic of the Congo · Colour · 65 min

Thirty years of war, seven million displaced, ten million dead. Trop c’est trop is a plunge into the chaos of the city of Goma, capital of North Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Truly Naked

Unknown · Netherlands, Belgium, France · Colour · 102 min

An introverted teen, who has only ever experienced sex through the lens while working for his father’s pornography business, must step out from behind the camera when a feisty classmate challenges him to embrace a real connection.
Tunten lügen nicht

Unknown · Germany · Colour · 90 min

In the mid-1980s, Ichgola Androgyn, BeV StroganoV, Tima the Divine and Ovo Maltine come together in West Berlin to develop shows, political actions and media appearances. They collaborate, argue and love each other – because they see themselves as a family.
TUTU

Berlinale Special · United Kingdom · Colour & Black/White · 101 min

Through never-before-seen archival footage and first-hand accounts of those who knew him best, the film traces Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s rise as the voice of the oppressed, guided by faith, hope and an understanding of the power of forgiveness.
Two Mountains Weighing Down My Chest

Panorama · Germany, Netherlands · Colour · 85 min

A Chinese wannabe artist drifts between Berlin’s overwhelming alternative scene and her traditional family in Beijing. With wit and insight, the film follows her search for identity and belonging in a globalised but polarised world.
Uchronia

Forum Expanded · Greece, Netherlands · Colour & Black/White · 97 min

Arthur Rimbaud’s ghost wanders through history, meeting revolutionary figures such as Emma Goldman, David Wojnarowicz and Marsha P. Johnson. A layered collage of encounters questioning identity, revolution and the role of the artistic avant-garde.
Un hijo propio

Berlinale Special · Mexico · Colour · 96 min

The profound desire to become a mother and pressure from her surroundings drive Alejandra to fake a pregnancy. What begins as a simple lie turns into a complex charade and unleashes a media scandal that makes it impossible for her to continue the pretence.
Un hiver russe

Panorama · France · Colour · 87 min

After the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Margarita, Yuri and their friends are pushed into exile from Russia as they refuse to comply with the regime. Suspended between countries, they have nowhere to return, and nowhere they feel truly welcome.
Una mujer fantástica

Unknown · Chile, USA, Germany, Spain · Colour · 104 min

Marina is a transgender woman. When her partner dies, she finds herself faced with his family’s anger and prejudice. She fights for her right to grieve – with the same unbroken energy she displayed when she fought to live as a woman.
Under the Wave off Little Dragon

Generation · United Kingdom · Colour · 14 min

When her goldfish dies, six-year-old Feifei sets off through a small Welsh seaside town in search of answers. Her journey leads her to reimagine a folktale from her mother’s homeland – on her own terms.
Unidentifizierte Unflugobjekte (UUO)

Berlinale Shorts · Germany · Colour · 12 min

However permanent and stable any order may seem, it may eventually crumble when reality outside of the system creeps in, growing like organic matter through the boundaries that the order has imposed. An animated odyssey.
Verführung: Die grausame Frau

Unknown · Federal Republic of Germany 1985 · 84 min

A Forum film that today remains what the heart desired in 1985: queer and sensual, drama and S&M, cool and hot, avant-garde and subversion, dreamers and toilet slaves, camp and critique, “Venus in Furs” and pure Eighties. Treut and Mikesch – and Udo forever!
Video Days

Retrospective · USA 1991 · 24 min

In 24 minutes, five skateboarders strut their stuff against a soundtrack of grunge, soul and jazz. Spike Jonze’s dynamic early work was not only a milestone in skateboarder culture, it also influenced the style of the director’s later music videos.
Videogramme einer Revolution

Retrospective · Germany 1992 · 107 min

A minute-by-minute chronology of the Romanian revolution in December 1989 in Bucharest. This cinematic montage of live footage from the state television company TVR and video taken by numerous amateurs becomes a new media-based form of historiography.
Vier minus drei

Panorama · Austria, Germany · Colour · 121 min

Barbara and Heli are professional clowns, living out their dream of an alternative, joy‑filled life with their two children. But when Heli and the children die in a car crash, Barbara’s faith in humour, hope and humanity is put to the ultimate test.
Warnungen an die ferne Zukunft

Forum Expanded · Germany · Colour · 19 min

“How should those who come after us be warned of danger?” A film about the search for the German-German nuclear waste repository – between warning signs, feedback loops, flowing flocks of birds and the area between sign and object.
Was an Empfindsamkeit bleibt

Forum · Germany · Colour · 91 min

Soberly and with restraint, the director reconstructs the attempted femicide she survived 14 years before. Intense conversations with people from her past provide an external perspective on an act subjectively and objectively impossible to grasp.
WAX & GOLD

Berlinale Special · Austria, Italy · Colour & Black/White · 97 min

Opened at the end of the 1960s by Emperor Haile Selassie, Hilton Addis Ababa stands today as a grand hotel, much like any other. From this vantage point, Ruth Beckermann explores Ethiopia’s past and present, interweaving fact and fiction.
We Deh Here

Forum Expanded · United Kingdom · Colour

A 16mm film installation responding to legacies of Scottish colonialism and slavery in Guyana through archival research, matrilineal lines and sewing.
Whale 52 – Suite for Man, Boy, and Whale

Generation · USA · Colour · 11 min

A quiet boy and a silently grieving widower who volunteers at the boy’s school discover a magical pen and journal that enable them to hear each other with a listening heart.
What Will I Become?

Generation · USA · Colour · 86 min

Co-directors Lexie and Logan weave together the stories of two trans boys who died by suicide and their trans masculine+ community, offering resources and imagination for a way forward.
Where To?

Unknown · Israel, Germany · Colour · 95 min

Hassan, a 55-year-old Palestinian Uber driver, shuttles partygoers through endless Berlin nights. Amir, a young Israeli who is in danger of losing himself to these nights, becomes Hassan’s regular passenger when they find themselves bonded by heartbreak.
Who Killed Alex Odeh?

Berlinale Special · USA · Colour & Black/White · 82 min

The assassination of a beloved Palestinian American activist in Southern California ignites a 40-year quest for justice that uncovers the roots of a dangerous political movement that still thrives today.
Wild at Heart: Community as Infrastructure in Queer Film Culture

Unknown · Event

TEDDY events cultivate rare intimacy, drawing global film communities into queer spaces. Queer gatherings forge and sustain community. What does representation on screen mean for audiences, programming and shared cultural experiences?
Wild at Heart: Embedding Queer Cinema in Industry Structures

Unknown · Event

Queer cinema traditionally relies on collaborative forms of production and alliances. How has the TEDDY engineered its own bridges and strategic partnerships not only to bring visibility to queer films but also to embed them within market structures?
Wild at Heart: Rooms That Became Revolutions

Unknown · Event

Born from a small group of queer festival programmers, the TEDDY predated its iconic role at the Berlinale. Revisiting its origins shows how it reshaped Berlin’s queer cultural sphere and, as a defiant political force, became part of the festival’s core.
Wild at Heart: Subversive Reimagining of Cinematic Spaces

Unknown · Event

The TEDDY has excelled in defying cinematic and cultural norms with gleeful subversion. It has challenged market rules, spotlit fearless queer storytelling, rattled expectations – and rewired the global map of queer film culture.
Wild at Heart: The TEDDY as a Catalyst

Unknown · Event

Queer cinema accelerates cultural energy, and festivals act as its catalysts. Having grown into important community events, they now form key distribution circuits. How has the TEDDY strengthened this network and the global queer film ecosystem?
Wildwood, NJ

Retrospective · USA 1994 · 59 min

Shot with an all-female crew on Super 8, Wildwood, NJ catapults the audience into the lives and stories of young American women in the 1990s. Yet under the blazing sun of the Jersey Shore, it also sometimes reveals the underbelly of the boardwalk carnival.
Wolfram

Competition · Australia · Colour · 102 min

1930s Australia, the colonial frontier. Two swaggering outlaws roll into a mining town and unleash a wave of cruelty, leading two siblings to break free from their white masters and set off across the “sweet country” of central Australia in search of a safe home.
Wo Men Bu Shi Mo Sheng Ren

Competition · Singapore · Colour · 157 min

A life-altering event forces 21-year-old Junyang and his girlfriend to face reality. At the same time, while Junyang’s father is struggling to hold their modest life together, a woman enters his life and both generations are forced to redefine their family.
World Cinema Fund Talk: Alain Gomis

Unknown · English · 90 min

Co-hosted by the World Cinema Fund, Alain Gomis (Dao) joins to discuss his filmmaking practice shaped across borders, various languages, and production contexts.
Yawman ma walad

Berlinale Shorts · France, Romania, Lebanon · Colour · 27 min

A boy with extraordinary powers lives with his uncle in a Lebanese village where the noise of warplanes is a daily occurrence. As his uncle tries to train him to appear “normal”, the boy’s gift becomes impossible to contain.
Yerçekimi

Generation · Turkey · Colour · 16 min

Deniz plays happily with her best friend Umut at their secret hideout. But at school, she is excluded by the boys and also fails to fit in with the girls. Then, a childhood dream becomes true and takes on a new meaning.
Yön Lapsi

Competition · Finland, Lithuania, France, United Kingdom · Colour · 92 min

Eager to start a family, Saga and Jon move to her childhood home in the Finnish forest. But after their baby is born, the couple’s dream of a perfect child turns into a nightmare – and only Saga senses the unsettling truth.
Yo (Love is a Rebellious Bird)

Competition · USA · Colour & Black/White · 78 min

After losing her friend Yo, Anna builds a detailed 1/3-scale version of her friend’s house. It is just big enough for Anna to squeeze into, and inside lives a puppet of Yo. When the pair first met, Yo was 73 and Anna 24.
Yuragim

Berlinale Shorts · Austria, Uzbekistan · Colour & Black/White · 19 min

Saida moves between the roles of teacher, daughter, translator and fixer like a train on its tracks. As her boss looms closer, she must decide whether to continue supporting the system or vanish into a world of her own making.
Yurugu – Invisible Lines

Forum Expanded · Democratic Republic of the Congo, Belgium, USA, France · Colour · 43 min

A film about the gift of re-membering what was dis-membered by the colonial project. Dreamscapes, ritualised practices of sharing and ancestral rhythms render visible the previously invisible lines that once held communities and ecosystems in sacred balance.

Venues in our 2026 coverage

Berlinale Palast Marlene-Dietrich-Platz 1, 10785 Berlin
Haus der Berliner Festspiele Schaperstr. 24, 10719 Berlin
Akademie der Künste Hanseatenweg 10, 10557 Berlin
HAU Hebbel am Ufer Stresemannstr. 29, 10963 Berlin
Silent Green Gerichtstr. 35, 13347 Berlin
Zoo Palast Hardenbergstr. 29a, 10623 Berlin
Cubix Rathausstr. 1, 10178 Berlin
CinemaxX Potsdamer Str. 5, 10785 Berlin
Kino International Karl-Marx-Allee 33, 10178 Berlin
Delphi Filmpalast Kantstr. 12a, 10623 Berlin

Find original-language films after the festival

OV means the film is shown in its original spoken language. OmU indicates subtitles; OmeU specifically indicates English subtitles. Original language does not necessarily mean English, so check both the audio and subtitle information before booking.

The 2026 programme

17

575 Castro St.

A Circle as the Center of the Whole

A Fabulosa Máquina do Tempo

A Family

A New Dawn

A Prayer for the Dying

À voix basse

Abracadabra

A German New Wave of Directors

AI Realism – Qantar 2022

Allá en el cielo

Allegro Pastell

Allemagne année 90 neuf zéro

Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros

Animol

AnyMart

Árru

Artist Talk: Unauthorised Versions

Assarab

At the Sea

Atlasul universului

Augmenting Histories: Indigenous Approaches to XR Media Art

Auslandsreise

Award Ceremony Generation 14plus

Award Ceremony Generation Kplus

A Woman’s Place Is Everywhere

Bamboozled

Barbara Forever

Bats & Bugs

Beaucoup parler

Berlinale Camera for Max Richter

Berlinale Closing Ceremony – Golden Bear for Best Film

Berlinale Closing Gala – Award Ceremony

Berlinale Doc Talk hosted by Matt Carey

Berlinale Documentary Award

Berlinale Film Talk: İlker Çatak

Berlinale Film Talk: John Turturro and Noah Segan

Berlinale Shorts Award Winners

Berlin, Bahnhof Friedrichstraße 1990

Black Burns Fast

Black Lions – Roman Wolves

Born of the Yam

Boyz n the Hood

Bucks Harbor

Butterfly Stories: Malaise II

C’est ma sœur

Caligari Film Award Ceremony

Casting for a Film, Ihsan’s Diary

Cesarean Weekend

Chaos and Control: Exposing Systems That Thrive on Confusion

Chicas Tristes

Chloé Zhao – In Conversation

Chronicles From the Siege

Chronos – Fluss der Zeit

Chuuraa

Composer’s Talk with Daniel Blumberg

Con Fusion: Sasha Waltz on creating connecting choreographies

Controlled Chaos: The Production Design Process

Cosmonauts

Crocodile

Cuando llegue a casa

D’Est

Dao

De capul nostru

Der Heimatlose

Der Kontrolleur

Deutschlandfunk Kultur „Im Gespräch“ with Enno Trebs

Deutschlandfunk Kultur „Im Gespräch“ with Eva Trobisch

Deutschlandfunk Kultur „Im Gespräch“ with Markus Schleinzer

Deutschlandfunk Kultur „Im Gespräch“ with Tom Tykwer

Di san xian

Die Blutgräfin

Director’s Talk: Ulrike Ottinger

Dirty Girls

Doggerland

Douglas Gordon by Douglas Gordon

Dust

Effondrement