Berlinale 75 – Our spotlights as Berlin film festival begins today…

As the curtain is about to lift…

By Suman Bhuchar

TRICIA TUTTLE who was at theBritish Film Institute (BFI) head of London Film Festival took over the role at Berlin as director in April 2024 and presents her first festival which also marks 75 years of the Berlinale.

Tuttle said: “We are the only major A-list festival that is in a capital city, and Berlin is a city steeped in history.

“We do not shy away from this. We embrace the pluralistic takes on the world that our filmmakers, our guests from more than 150 countries and our audiences bring to this international event.

“Cinema is a tool of communication. At the same time, we celebrate film as an art form, a thriving and vital art form.

“Berliners embrace this festival with great curiosity and eagerly engage with cinema in its most expansive range within the Berlinale – from intimate essay films to site specific installations, from late night genre viscera and queer animation to the odd blockbuster from a favourite auteur. You can almost hear the rallying cry around the films. Cinema! Cinema!”

Opening Film and Tilda Swinton award now

There is much excitement as director Tom Tykwer returns to the big screen following his near 10 years on the acclaimed TV series, ‘Babylon Berlin’.
In ‘Das Licht’ (‘The Light’), a Syrian refugee is employed by a German family as a housekeeper and all the family’s relationships are changed by her.
Tykwer described the film “as hardcore political”.
Tala Al-Deen plays the housekeeper, while Lars Eidinger and Nicolette Krebitz form the couple, Tim and Milena, who have two 17-year-old twins.
The opening film has an added edge as the country’s General Election will take place on February 23 with the anti-refugee and hard right, Alternative for Germany (AfD) expected to do well.
A host of stars are expected to descend on Berlin for the festival, these include Timothée Chalamet, Robert Pattinson, Jessica Chastain, Jacob Elordi, Benedict Cumberbatch, Edward Berger, to name just a few.
Oscar winning Korean director Bong Joon Ho will unveil ‘Mickey 17’ which stars Pattinson.

Competition section

This year, 19 films will compete for the Golden and Silver Bears, among them one first feature, as well as one documentary.
The Jury is headed by American director, Todd Haynes (‘May December’).
There is a Berlinale Special section (varied selection of work) which includes the German Premiere of the Bob Dylan film, ‘A Complete Unknown’ as well as the film, ‘Friendship’s Death’ (1987) directed by Peter Woollen, featuring Tilda Swinton who will receive an Honorary Golden Bear accolade at the Opening Ceremony at the Berlinale Palast tonight (February 13)
“The range of Tilda Swinton’s work is breath-taking. To cinema she brings so much humanity, compassion, intelligence, humour and style, and she expands our ideas of the world through her work.
“Tilda is one of our modern filmmaking idols, and has also long been part of the Berlinale family. We are delighted to be able to present her with this Honorary Golden Bear,” Tuttle enthused.

The festival Red Carpet and arrivals for The Opening Film begin today at 4pm (GMT) – https://www.berlinale.de/de/fotos-videos/berlinale-live/streaming.html

The Light – https://www.berlinale.de/en/2025/programme/202517151.html

Perspectives

The Perspectives Competition comprises 14 feature film debuts, of which 12 are world premieres and two are international premieres. This is a new section which replaces Encounters and also has a prize for a best fiction debut (50,000 Euros funded by GWFF – Gesellschaft zur Wahrnehmung von Film- und Fernsehrechten, a society dedicated to safeguarding film and television rights) and the Indian film ‘Baksho Bondi’ will enjoy a World Premiere in this section.

Baksho Bondi (‘Shadowbox’) – film

Tillotama Shome stars in this crime thriller drama which chronicles the life of odd job wife and mother Maya, played by Shome. Her husband
Sundar is a discharged soldier with PTSD and they both have a son, Debu who cares for his father who is scarred and out of work. When he goes missing and becomes a suspect in a murder case, family relations are turned upside down again. Set in Kolkata and in both Bengali and Hindi and by director Tanushree Das and Saumyananda Sahi.

https://www.berlinale.de/en/2025/programme/202503874.html

Panorama

This section consists of contemporary international films which have an artistic and sometimes political edge; there are queer works, feminist perspectives and documentaries in this section. They look where few people often do, uncovering things about their societies and ourselves that ask important and urgent questions.

‘Listy z Wilczej’ (‘Letters from Wolf Street’) – documentary

Filmmaker Arjun Talwar emigrated to Poland around 10 years ago but stills feels a little out of sorts, and decides to pick up his camera and document the lives of his neighbours on the central Warsaw street where he lives. Enlisting the help of another immigrant-turned filmmaker Mo, the pair uncover a cast of characters who have depth, humour and complex histories between the past and the present, a bit like Talwar himself.

https://www.berlinale.de/en/2025/programme/202501764.html

Lesbian Space Princess – film

An Australian production, this is a riotous animated comedy, with the on goings of the planet Clitopolis brought into sharp relief as Princess Saira, the daughter of flamboyant lesbian Queens finds herself single after her girlfriend, bounty hunter, Kiki, declares the introverted princess as too needy. Australian director Leela Varghese co-wrote and co-directs with Emma Hough Hobbs. This is their debut film.

https://www.berlinale.de/en/2025/programme/202512279.html?sort=1&section_id=56&day_id=2024-12-17&y=2025

Sir Isaac Julien ‘Once Again…(Statues Never Die)’ & Looking for Langston –art films

British artist Sir Isaac Julien has two films screening – one is a world premiere for a cinema outing, ‘Once Again…(Statues Never Die)’ is a 32 minute film that explores what it means to be a black artist and intellectual through the eyes of Alain Locke. Known as ‘The Father of the Harlem Renaissance’, Locke occupies a unique perspective on a culture that resonates with the past – as artefacts plundered from Africa appear in museums in the west and what that means for those of African descent but not based in the West.
Sir Isaac goes to different locations that speak of Locke’s associations – the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford University, where he was the first Rhodes black scholar and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, another institution he graced.
This film also connects back to ‘Looking for Langston’ (1989) which also screens at the festival. Both these films examine a queer subculture that existed in the Harlem Renaissance.
In ‘Looking for Langston’, Sir Issac examines the legacy of Langston Hughes (1902-1967), another figure of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s.
Shot in black and white, the film was made when Sir Issac was part of the Sankofa Film and Video Collective, set up to develop black independent filmmaking. It has become seminal in its own right and was at the origins of what some describe as ‘New Queer Cinema’.

https://www.berlinale.de/en/2025/programme/2025299180.html

beneath the placid lake – art installation (film, pictures, textual archive)

This is a projection- based installation that looks at the impact of the creation of a huge dam in the state of Telangana, South India.
Director Kush Badhwar chronicles how roughly 100 villages and 150,000 inhabitants were displaced, while 100 temples were spared from the floodwaters through a process of salvage and preservation.
Drawn on material assembled over three generations, the film combines photographs, video, and textual annotations to show the temporality of landscapes and how humans navigate such challenges.

beneath the placid lake (installation) is part of the Methods of Translucence Exhibition which will open on Friday 14 at 7pm at Betonhalle@Silent Green.Opening hours: February 14 7pm – 10pm // February 15 – 23, daily 12pm – 10pm | Admission free
https://www.berlinale.de/en/2025/programme/202517893.html

Forum

This is for work that is innovative, idiosyncratic, experimental and unconventional. It looks far beyond commerce and is a space for debate, discussion and radical ideas. It is also the space for experiment and playing with boundaries, formats and genres. It as the Berlinale says itself, presenting, “film as a rekindling of humanity, interrogation of the status quo and a seismograph of our time – satires on dicatators and reflections on AI included. What’s Next?” It asks.

Vaghachipani (‘Tiger’s Pond’) – film

Casting his net over faith, caste and political power in South India, Natesh Hedge has several characters fighting for political power and influence in the Vaghachipani region and a tussle between connected and affluent businessman Prabhu, his faithful migrant right hand help, Malabari and Basu, a politically astute outcaste worker. These fierce opponents are at the core of this multi-layered film. Hedge revisits some of the themes of his critically acclaimed debut, ‘Pedro’ (2021). “As it unmasks the brutality beneath the serene beauty of the village, the still waters of ‘Tiger’s Pond’ begin to reveal their treacherous depths”, says the Berlinale.

https://www.berlinale.de/en/2025/programme/202508428.html

Village Rockstars 2 – film

Following on from the success of her global festival hit, ‘Village Rockstars’, Indian writer-director Rima Das returns to Assam and the dreams of Dhanu, who really wants to be a musician. Now older, if not necessarily wiser, she faces challenges as her family situation alters radically and the transition from child to young adult make it a little bit of a rude awakening. Nevertheless, her spirit and ambition continue to burn brightly…

https://www.berlinale.de/en/2025/programme/202506997.html

The Berlinale Talents programme has some public Q&A sessions

The opening one (5pm CET) is with the main competition jury chair, much respected and admired US director Todd Haynes, as he discusses his career and the film industry at large with host Rajendra Roy, chief film curator at the Museum of Modern Art (Moma) in New York.

Monday, February 17 – see here https://www.berlinale-talents.de/bt/programme/event/5024

See you at Berlinale!

The Berlin Film Festival, also known as Berlinale from today (February 13) to Sunday, February 23. https://www.berlinale.de/en/home.html

All photographs courtesy of Berlinale