THE MOELLN LETTERS | DIE MÖLLNER BRIEFE by Martina Priessner awarded with the Panorama Audience Award and the Amnasty-Filmprize-Berlinale 2025 by the jury around actress Florence Kasumba and director Soleen Yusef and Myriam Vitovec: "...Using the classic means of documentary filmmaking, the film about this special story has an enormous impact. The artistic decision to show the letters and have some of them read aloud by the letter writers unleashes a great narrative power: self-painted pictures by children, poems and the sentence “I am ashamed to be a German” – all of this is touching. The empathetic language of the letters in contrast to the violent attacks is striking when they are written about 'fellow human beings' or 'fellow citizens', about ‘togetherness’ instead of 'migrants'...." Browse the full statement of the jury —German only— here.

The Amnasty-Filmprize-Berlinale jury as well as the Panorama Audience also awarded with a Special Mention the documentary KHARTOUM by Anas Saeed, Rawia Alhag, Ibrahim Snoopy, Timeea M Ahmed, Phil Cox, who are also the winners of the PEACE FILM PRIZE with the jury statement: "The documentary KHARTOUM follows five people in the Sudanese capital as they go about their daily lives in a burgeoning democracy. When war breaks out in April 2023, it is impossible to continue filming on location. The filmmakers decide to flee and also help the protagonists to flee. In exile, the five re-enact their traumatic war experiences in a confined space and encourage each other to keep pursuing their dreams. The skillful combination of documentary material and fictional elements creates images that are emotionally moving and at the same time make visible the processes of coming to terms with the past. Khartoum strikes a unique balance between political urgency and poetry. The film is a plea for the healing power of sharing stories. In doing so, it creates a hopeful outlook for the future and for building peace."

 

The TEDDY AWARD for the best queer documentary film of the festival goes to SANTANIC SOW | SATANISCHE SAU by Rosa von Praunheim with the jury statement: "A filmmaker awaits death but sees no need to tidy up the apartment beforehand. The summary of a life unfolds not as monologue but as pagan ritual, performed with an alter ego through shared experiences. Their almost paroxysmal, incessant creative production is fueled by a lifetime of queer encounters with death: HIV, murder threats, and finally, old age – with sex and filmmaking emerging as antidotes to disappearance, silence, and untouchability. The jury honors this document of vitality that refuses closure, make-up, or cinematic coherence..."

 

The HEINER CAROW PRIZE for the promotion of German cinematic art is awarded to PALLIATIV CARE UNIT | PALLIATIVSTATION by Philipp Döring. Jury statement: "With death in sight, the human condition becomes the focus of this film. Everyday life in a clinic for terminally ill patients is observed sensitively and clearly. Together with the ward staff and the dying, the audience is confronted with existential questions and reminded of what is essential in life: listening, comforting, sincerely being there for each other –  in the face of this film, it is basically inconceivable that we live in such hateful times. PALLIATIVSTATION is deeply humanistic and shows the indispensable importance of empathy, which we actually all have within us. The most precious commodity is time. This movie shows how valuable it is. It is a quiet but deeply moving homage to life, which also includes dying." Source DEFA Stiftung.

 

 

premiering a total number of 19 German productions and co-productions documentary form, as well as THREE STONES FOR JEAN GENET with Patti Smith by Frieder Schlaich ©2014, produced by Filmgalerie 451 as Berlinale Shorts Special.

 

 

The 75th edition of the Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin is showcasing German productions and co-productions documentary form such as:

 

 

 FORUM:

The 55th Forum main program comprises 30 films from five continents – including seven feature debuts – and encounters a world and its people that are not in good shape. “Sounding out a diverse range of cinematic forms, the Forum shows contemporary cinema that moves beyond the cult and the commercial – giving off sparks of humanity, interrogating the status quo and functioning as a seismograph of our time”, said section head Barbara Wurm.
Film titles become indicators of time here, among them Stefan Hayn’s 2024 (2023) places the political Berlin and the private Bavaria within the two respective frames he makes for himself as a painter of his surroundings: that of the film shot and that of the painting shown in it.
more information here:

PANORAMA:

In the international documentaries, Panorama catches a glimpse of the faded but still present ghosts of a fallen dictatorship via archive footage in UNDER THE FLAGS, THE SUN | BAJO LAS BANDERAS, EL SOL while BEDROCKS looks at ten Holocaust memorials and reflects on the power of remembering and the threat posed by forgetting.
Likewise set in Poland, LETTERS FROM WOLF STREET | LISTY Z WILCZEJ observes personal and political developments on the titular Wilcza Street in Warsaw through the lens of director Arjun Talwar. In her documentary collaboration Yalla Parkour with the young freerunner Ahmed and his friends in Gaza, director Areeb Zuaiter deals with memory, homesickness, living conditions and everyday life before the start of the current war.

In 2025, queer cinema bares its claws and reveals a sense of adventure. From the classic artist portrait of MONK IN PIECES .... browse more information here.

The Berlinale’s queer film prize is on the verge of celebrating a big anniversary: on February 21, a three-person jury will be presenting the coveted TEDDY AWARD for the 39th time. As is tradition, queer cinema will be celebrated with a lavish party at Berlin’s Volksbühne. And none other than this year’s Jury President of the Berlinale, Todd Haynes, will be honoured with the 2025 SPECIAL TEDDY for his lifetime achievement.
Browse all prizes and juries here.

 

as single page
• 75 BERLINALE 2025 • 
• 74 BERLINALE 2024 •
• 73 BERLINALE 2023 •
• 72 BERLINALE 2022 •
• 71 BERLINALE 2021 • 
• 70 BERLINALE 2020 •
• 69 BERLINALE 2019 • 
• 68 BERLINALE 2018 •