Oscar winner Tildda Swinton, “Dune” star Timothée Chalamet, Margaret Qualley (“The Substance”), Jessica Chastain (“Interstellar”), Robert Pattinson (“Twilight”), Sibel Kekilli (“Against the Wall”), Benedict Cumberbatch (“Sherlock”), Oscar winner Marion Cotillard (“La Vie en Rose”), Lars Eidinger (“Die”) and Vicky Krieps-these are some of the film stars who arrive at the 75th Berlinale. The anniversary edition of the Berlin Film Festivalwho is being headed for the first time by the British festival director Tricia Tuttle, starts on Thursday evening with Tom Tykwers (“Babylon Berlin”) family drama “Das Licht”, in which Nicolette Krebitz and Lars Eidinger, among other things, have a part.
Tuttle, who took over the festival management of Carlo Chatrian and Mariette Rissenbeek last spring, has tidy the game schedule for the 75th film festival. The British has abolished the experimental secondary competition Encounter, introduced by Chatrian in 2020 and created a new competition for first works from all over the world with Perspectives.
In addition to 13 films from all over the world, two German -language debuts also compete this year. The Austrian Florian Pochlatko introduces his portrait film “How to Be Normal and the Oddness of the other World”, from the Berlin filmmaker and singer Constanze Klaue, the film adaptation of Lukas Rietzschel’s novel “With his fist into the world” in the international competition can be seen for feature film debuts.
If it goes to Tuttle and her team, the main note of the festival should again apply to the race for the golden and silver bears. These are awarded by the six-member international jury for the American Todd Haynes (“May December”, “Carol”) on February 22nd in a solemn final gala. A total of 19 films compete in the competition this year, including the new works by award winners such as Richard Linklater, Hong Sangsoo and Radu Jude.
Richard Linklater and Hong Sangsoo
Linklater, who won a silver bear with “Before Sunrise” (1995) and “Boyhood” (2014), presents his new film “Blue Moon”. In it, the American tells the history of the lyrics Lorenz Hart, who slips into a life crisis when his former partner Richard Rodgers celebrates his greatest success as a solo artist. The South Korean director Hong Sangsoo, who has already won four silver bears, is a guest in Berlin for the ninth time. He introduces his new film “What does that nature say to you”, in which he records the events and discussions with a family reunion with proven staff. Radu Jude won the golden bear with the social satire “Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn”. Now he returns with the drama “Continental ’25”, which focuses on a bailiff that collapses in the Transylvanian capital Cluj under the stress of her job.
With Frédéric Hambalek’s family history “What Marielle Weiß”, Ameer Fakher Eldin’s portrait “Yunan” and Johanna Moders drama “Mother’s Baby”, three German -language films of the international competition are also facing the bears. In “What Marielle knows” Julia Jentsch and Felix Kramer play a couple, whose daughter has telepathic skills and brings unpleasant truths to light. In “Yunan”, the filmmaker Ameer Fakher Eldin, born in Kiev and grew up in Israel, follows a man named Munir who wants to say goodbye to a lonely island. The Austrian competitive contribution “Mother’s Baby” deals with a couple’s desire to have children and how he turns into a nightmare.
Berlinale Special with a high celebrity factor
The celebrity factor is particularly high for the 21 films that are shown as the Berlinale Special. Among other things, Oscar winner Joon Bong Ho (“Parasite”) presents his new film “Mickey 17”, in which Robert Pattinson plays the leading role. Music fans can look forward to James Mangold (“Walk the Line”) and his dylan biopic “Like a Complete Unknown”, which is nominated for three Oscars. In it, Timothée Chalamet (“Dune”, “Call Me by your name”) slips into the role of young Bob Dylan, who as a singer-songwriter changes American music. In “The Thing with Feathers”, Dylan Southern portrays a comic artist who has to take care of his two sons alone after his wife’s sudden death. “Sherlock” star Benedict Cumberbatch plays the leading role here and will arrive at the European premiere. Jacob Elordi (“Priscilla”, “Euphoria”) comes to Berlin for the world premiere of Justin Kurzel’s drama series “The Narrow Road to the Deep North”. In addition, Tilda Swinton will arrive to counter the Golden Honorary Bears of the Berlinale. On this occasion, Peter Wollens “Friendship’s Death” will show one of her first films.
In addition, six German -language films in the popular side row are shown. In “Heldin” by Swiss filmmaker Petra Volpe, Leonie Benesch can be seen as a prudent nurse who is confronted with the small and large dramas of life on a understaffed station. Benesch was one of the European Shooting Stars at the Berlinale two years ago, most recently she impressed in the drama “The Teacher Room” by İlker Çatak, which was nominated for an Oscar last year. According to Döblin’s “Berlin Alexanderplatz”, Burhan Qurbani modernizes in his new film Shakespeare’s “Richard III.” In “No animal. So wildly ”he transfers the historical drama around the rose wars at the English royal family to a gang war between two large Arab families.
Rose wars at the English royal family
Ido Fluks feature film about Keith Jarrett’s Cologne concert in 1975 is also shown. In “Cologne 75” the story is largely told from the perspective of the then concert manager and today’s music producer Vera Brandes. The special thing about it: Fluks got no release for Jarrett’s music, the film has to do without the sound of the legendary pianist. In addition, Jan-Ole Gerster (“Oh Boy”) introduces his thriller “Islands”, Edgar Reitz (“Heimat-A German Chronicle”) the portrait film “Leibniz-Chronicle of a missing picture” and Tom Tykwer the family drama “The Light”. In his black and white documentary “The German People”, Marcin Wierzchowski also tells the history of the racist attack in Hanau from the perspective of the bereaved and survivors. This fits Martina Priessner’s documentary “The Möllner Letters”, which is shown in the panorama and follows the experiences of the survivors of the racist arson attack in 1992 in Mölln.
Here it is indicated that the Berlinale will also meet its reputation as a political festival under Tricia Tuttle. This can also be seen in the further program. For example, the Middle East conflict is taken up in the documentary “A Letter to David” by the Israeli filmmaker Tom Shoval, who is aimed at his friend David Cunio with this film, who is still in the hands of Hamas. In “Yalla Parkour”, the multinational filmmaker Areb portrays a young athlete from the Gaza strip against the background of the war.
Land on the edge of fascism
The UkraineKlieg and its consequences are taken up in a handful of films. The American filmmaker Julia Loktev, born in the Soviet Union, presents her five and a half hour documentary “My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow”, where she accompanies young journalist: inside, who fights Putin’s propaganda. This extraordinary report on a country on the sidelines of fascism faces the Ukrainian documentary “Timestamp”, in which the Ukrainian director Kateryna Gornostai observes Kaleidoscopically, as is shaped by the everyday life of pupils: inside and teachers in Ukraine. In addition, Vitaly Mansky portrays his hometown Lviv in war times in “Time to the Target”, Oleksiy Radynski has processed recordings of the monitoring system of the nuclear power plant in Tschernobyl, which were created during the Russian occupation and Eva Neymann wanders with her camera through Odessa And shows the omnipresence of the war.
Against the background of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and the end of the Second World War, the Berlinale also shows Claude Lanzmann’s monumental work “Shoah”, in which the French director tried to capture the reality of the Holocaust in almost ten hours. In addition, the film “All I Had Was Nothingness” is shown, in which the Frenchman Guillaume Ribot is forty years after the publication of “Shoah” on unpublished film material and Lanzmann’s memoir to put a monument to this groundbreaking work and the man behind it.
There are also some exciting documentaries to be seen in the rather entertained panorama. For the first time, the Canadian Denis Coté is a guest with a documentary in Berlin, in “Paul” he accompanies a young man who cleans the apartments of dominant women. In addition, Luzia Schmid’s documentary “I want everything. Hildegard Knef ”, Billy Shebars Meredith-Monk portrait“ Monk in Pieces ”and Rosa from Praunheim’s self-portrait“ Satanian Sau ”.
More than 200 films
In the retrospective, which is already worth visiting the festival, genre films from the 1970s from East and West Germany are shown: by Hans W. Geißendörfer’s opulent vampire film “Jonathan” to Horst Bonnets operetta film “Orpheus in the Underworld” to Ralf Olsen Federal Republican Giallo western “Bloody Friday”. Konrad Wolf’s “Solo Sunny”, Alfred Hitchcocks “The case Paradin”, Don Siegels “Dirty Harry” or Yasuzô Masumura can also be seen “The Wife of Seisaku” at Berlinale Classics. The Estonian filmmaker Leida Laius is the only woman in the Berlinale classic program with her state-critical feature film “laugh”.
In total, far more than 200 films will be shown from the festival from 13 to 23 February. To make cineast: to make the selection easier, you can also filter the program according to interests. Genre fans find films with reference to horror and crime, Sisterhood or documentary, on queer, political or cultural topics. 22 films with reference to music and performance alone are shown at this year’s Berlinale.