Berlinale

2026, 120 min
by Yulia Lokshina

In one of the poorest regions of Paraguay lies Caazapá, the “city of magic and legends”. Here, two young Paraguayan students are searching for happiness, gold and a magic bird. Behind the fences of a gated community, European dropouts are seeking freedom, healing and salvation from Armageddon – for themselves and their savings. Separating them are 12 kilometres of red-earth road which transforms into a quagmire every rainy season. Around them hovers the humid heat and ch

Germany 2026, 110 min
by Sabine Lidl

Young, curious and full of drive, Siri Hustvedt leaves the wide, quiet landscapes of Minnesota and plunges into the pulsating life of New York City. In search of the protagonist for her first novel, she embarks on a journey that not only shapes her as a writer but leads her to become one of the most compelling voices in contemporary American literature. The film opens a perspective that reaches far beyond Siri Hustvedt herself, discovering women who courageously and independently realise their a

Germany, Netherlands 2026, 85 min
by Viv Li

Viv, a Chinese wannabe artist, found herself stuck in Berlin after the pandemic and accidentally ventured into the city’s vibrant alternative culture scene. Drifting between new environments and traditional expectations, Viv is constantly adapting to shifting opinions about herself, the world and, of course, China, only to feel more lost than ever. Two Mountains Weighing Down My Chest follows Viv’s eclectic encounters and the nuanced culture clashes that shape them. Told in a deeply

2026, 14 min
by Pavel Mozhar, Pavel Mozhar

An abandoned GDR factory. More than 400 dusty job application letters from the years 2004 to 2008 lie scattered in the cellar of the administrative building. Alongside the traditional phrases of a covering letter, the documents contain descriptions of personal circumstances and memories. The wishes of the applicants, as well as their fears and pain, are laid bare in their effort to find a place in the free market economy. A documentary contemplation of the individual behind the workforce. Source

Germany, Georgia 2026, 31 min
by Giorgi Gago Gagoshidze

A speculative documentary essay connecting the filmmaker’s medical history with post-Cold War geopolitical shifts and their impact on contemporary politics. The film originates from the filmmaker’s diagnosis with a rare form of cancer, T-cell lymphoma, a condition that causes the failure of the immune system and the body’s defence mechanisms. The medical treatment unfolds in three stages: 1. Remission of cancer cells; 2. Immune transplantation; 3. Adaptation to a new immune sys

2026, 200 min
by Volker Koepp

“Sarmatische Zeit” (Sarmatian Time) is the name of a poetry collection by Johannes Bobrowski, which becomes a personal, lyrical leitmotif for Volker Koepp in this visually striking, far-reaching exploration of the region between the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea, along the Memel, Dnister and Pruth rivers. It is a place of different origins, longings and crimes: a melting pot for myriad cultures and affiliations, a point of reference and refuge for over half a century in the work of th

2026, 92 min
by Sandra Prechtel

“There have only been two geniuses in Germany since the war, Fassbinder in the West and Schleef in the East”, remarked Elfriede Jelinek. When Einar Schleef died far too early in 2001 at the age of 57, he was alone, with the public only finding out about his death days later. How is it possible that this painter, author and pioneer of German theatre direction in the East, later in the West and finally in the reunified Germany – at once recognised and unappreciated, celebrated an

1968, 42 min
by Claudia von Alemann, Reinhold E. Thiel

Turn of the year 1967/68: the 4th International Experimental Film Festival is taking place at the Belgian seaside resort of Knokke. In addition to clips from the films, Claudia von Alemann and Reinold E. Thiel’s documentary above all shows the parallel events, the spontaneous performances, happenings and protest actions that took place there. They include the works of Harun Farocki, Jean-Jacques Lebel, Shirley Clarke, Holger Meins, Gustav Lamche, Armand Gatti and Mauricio Kagel, as well as

Germany, India 2026, 105 min
by Madhusree Dutta

Spurred by her Alzheimer’s-afflicted mother’s strange evocation of home-invading tigers, filmmaker Madhusree Dutta travels to Assam, India. Here, she learns about the Flying Tigers: US aircraft that transferred military supplies during WWII across the perilous Himalayas, from Assam to Kunming in China. So begins a globetrotting, decades-spanning docufiction essay on the human-scale experience of monumental logistical phenomena, featuring small histories that unfold in the quiet shado

Germany 1981, 142 min
by Chetna Vora, Chetna Vora

A film from East Berlin, 1981, with a curious history of preservation. Having created an open, intimate atmosphere while interviewing other international students in the halls of residence at her East German film school in Potsdam-Babelsberg for Oyoyo a year previously, Indian exchange student Chetna Vora now spoke to German native speakers, women in Berlin. Here too, remaining in their private realm was key to establishing a communicative setting in which unforced, unrehearsed, horizontal conve

Nigeria, Italy, Germany 2025, 22 min
by Karima Ashadu

With no single protagonist or linear narrative, the film immerses us in a spectacle of strength through an intimate portrait of bodybuilders in the slums of Lagos. Inflated muscles, bulging veins and luminous skin glistening with sweat fill the screen. Shot almost entirely in close-ups, the camera hovers so near its subjects, moving softly like breath on skin, that at times figures become blurred, abstracted forms. Karimah Ashadu’s slow, measured pans across backs, chests and arms meditate

Germany 2026, 91 min
by Marie Wilke

The Bundeswehr has arrived at a decisive “turning point” (“Zeitenwende”): in Schnöggersburg, Europe’s biggest military model city, defending the nation and the alliance is not just rehearsed, but also directly taught. Marie Wilke’s sober, focused observational documentary puts together a 360-degree view of its subject, which captures the current state of the German army from different perspectives. Between press appointments, swearing-in ceremonies, visit

Germany, Great Britain 2026, 15 min
by Daniel Mann

In 1904, European leaders of the Zionist Organisation secretly surveyed the Ugandan highlands as a potential “New Promised Land” for the Jewish people. Supported discreetly by British colonial administrators, who described East Africa as a barren and blank imperial canvas and were eager to rid England of its Jewish population, one Jewish delegate began mapping the terrain, climate and life in Uganda towards a new Jewish settlement. What occurred on that mountain that led the explorer

Germany, Serbia 2026, 17 min
by Mina Simendić

Treating language as a device of meaning, the film deals with the transposable power inherent in language itself – the value that derives from the device, rather than from the meaning. Given the opportunity to work with alluring and costly 16mm film stock within a restrictive political climate, a filmmaker reflects on the transactions made in the process of immigrating to Germany. What does one have to give up to be able to live in the “promised land”? By conceiving analogue fi

Germany 2026, 16 min
by Vika Kirchenbauer

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. This Suffocating Now witnesses the historical present as a condition marked by vectors of violence that have continuously and habitually existed, and puts its focus on the fault lines that have most explicitly exposed the illiberal underbelly of a liberal state and society in recent years: Palestine solidarity as

Germany 2025, 19 min
by Juliane Jaschnow, Stefanie Schroeder

The future of humanity’s precarious legacy is discussed in relation to issues of location in an endless online conference with 122 participants from civil society. The experts all agree: stones are more reliable than politics. A partly three-dimensional film about the search for the German-German nuclear waste repository, between warning signs, feedback loops and communication problems, glowing flocks of birds and the area between sign and object. A peace steamship cruises among Moselle vi

Germany 2026, 91 min
by Daniela Magnani Hüller

A film like a house full of dark chambers long closed. Yet every room will be opened: puppet shows, butterflies, colour, light! This autobiographical documentary debut sets out to deprive silence of its power. Fourteen years ago, the director survived an attempted femicide carried out by a schoolmate, who had harassed her before. An act whose subjective and objective inconceivability Daniela Magnani Hüller will not accept. In images of great sensitivity, she uncovers memories, makes her voi

1991, 86 min
by Konstanze Binder, Lilly Grote, Ulrike Herdin, Julia Kunert

The Berlin Wall has fallen. Doors are now opening and barriers are disappearing. Even before the Deutschmark starts to flow eastward, waves of people gush through the train station at Friedrichstrasse. Beginning in July 1990, when the treaty unifying the two German states takes effect, the controls at this border crossing become ever more lax. Four filmmakers from West and East keep tabs on the dismantling of the border operation posts and checkpoints. In the labyrinthian depths of the Trän

Germany, USA 1993, 60 min
by Werner Herzog

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, “mythomaniac” Werner Herzog travels to Siberia. Despite more than 70 years of Marxist-Leninist dogma, he finds a wide variety of religious practices that have survived communism. In addition to disciples of the Russian Orthodox church, he meets herders who consult with shamans before deciding on a direction of travel, as well as numerous miracle healers and itinerant preachers. They include a reborn Jesus Christ, a faith healer who sets free

Germany 1990, 83 min
by Johann Feindt, Jeanine Meerapfel, Helga Reidemeister, Dieter Schumann, Tamara Trampe

Rhine wine in Saxony! It is being served at an information stand set up by West Germany’s Christian Democratic Union party (CDU) just before the first and only free elections to East Germany’s People’s Assembly; the ballot will give the CDU almost 41% of the vote. But while the East Germans appear entirely sober about it all despite the sweet swill on offer, during the election campaign in February/March of 1990 the West Germans seem drunk on the new order. “Socialism is

1991, 13 min
by Eduard Schreiber

A doomsday mood wafts over a garbage dump near East Berlin. Crows and seagulls circle above it while below, a heavy machine trundles over a photograph of Mikhail Gorbachev. Not far from the flag of East Germany, a brochure offers information “about the beginnings of our state” and another on “the economy and national defence”. Mixed among the physical remnants of a defunct state are private artefacts of its citizens – letters, photos, questionnaires rustling gently

Germany 1993, 66 min
by Yury Khashevatsky

After a visit to the West, Ella Milova and Irina Pismennaja realise that concepts of feminism differ greatly between east and west. The Belarusian filmmakers task director Yury Khashevatsky with shooting a cinematic letter directed at, among others, their Bremen colleague Helke Sander. The film documents everyday hardships in a dictatorship and an economy of scarcity. They speak about women’s work and sexual equality to workers and party functionaries, prisoners and women in Tajikistan who

Germany 1992, 107 min
by Harun Farocki

“Television is on our side! We have won!” This chronicle of the 1989 revolution in Romania is put together from live coverage by the state broadcaster TVR and video recorded by numerous amateurs. Harun Farocki and Romanian writer and director Andrei Ujica had access to 125 hours of material, from which they compiled a minute-by-minute account of the period from December 21st to the 25th. Seen from multiple perspectives, these videograms cover the rapid succession of events from Nicol

Germany 2002, 90 min
by Rosa von Praunheim

Ichgola Androgyn, BeV StroganoV, Tima the Divine and Ovo Maltine are four headstrong drag queens who met in West Berlin in the mid-eighties and have been busy fertilising the cultural scene in both Germany and the rest of the world ever since. Director Rosa von Praunheim has been fortunate enough to work with each of them repeatedly in various films. They all share the fact that they are not mere performers but are also politically active – in AIDS awareness, events against anti-gay violen