The Berlin International Film Festival has unveiled the first wave of titles for its 75th edition, including features in its Panorama, Berlinale
The Berlin International Film Festival has unveiled the first wave of titles for its 75th edition, including features in its Panorama, Berlinale Special and Generation strands.
An initial 12 titles have been revealed for Panorama, of which eight are world premieres. These include Paul, a documentary by Canadian filmmaker Denis Cote, who has played in competition at Berlin four times with titles including Vic + Flo Saw A Bear and That Kind Of Summer. His latest follows a man struggling with social anxiety who finds refuge in serving women who invite him to neat their homes.
The section will also include Ira Sachs’ Peter Hujar’s Day, starring Ben Wishaw and Rebecca Hall, making its international premiere fresh from Sundance. The US-Germany co-production is set in 1974 and offers a portrait of the famed New York photographer.
Also set to receive its international premiere in Panorama is Dreams In Nightmares, the second feature of US filmmaker Shatara Michelle Ford, which follows three queer women on a road trip across the American Midwest in search of their friend.
There are world premieres for sex drama Night Stage by Brazilian directors Marcio Reolon and Filipe Matzembacher, whose Hard Paint won the Teddy and CICAE prizes at the Berlinale in 2018; and drama Home Sweet Home, about a carer for venerable people, from Denmark’s Frelle Petersen, whose Uncle won the Tokyo Grand Prix in 2019.
Also set for their world premieres in Panorama are Australian animation Lesbian Space Princess from directors Emma Hough Hobbs and Leela Varghese; relationship drama Deaf from Spain’s Eva Libertad; and Welcome Home Baby from Austrian filmmaker Andreas Prochaska.
Documentaries set to premiere in the section include Under The Flags; The Sun by Argentina’s Juanjo Pereira, exploring Alfredo Stroessner’s dictatorship in Paraguay over 35 years; and The Moelln Letters by German filmmaker Martina Priessner, centred on a survivor of racist attacks in the northern German town of Molln in 1992.
More than 30 titles made up Panorama at the previous edition of the festival.
The first three Berlinale Special titles comprise neo-noir thriller Islands starring Sam Riley and Stacy Martin from German director Jan-Ole Gerster; Canadian feature Honey Bunch from directors Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli; and Köln 75, a German production directed by Ido Fluk that recreates the true story of a teenage girl who organised a now-famous concert in Cologne with jazz legend Keith Jarrett. All are world premieres.
From Generation, eight features and seven shorts have been confirmed. They include French animation Maya, Give Me A Title from Oscar-winning filmmaker Michel Gondry. The film, which was released in France in October, is a stop-motion love letter to Gondry’s daughter.
Further titles include Village Rockstars 2 from India’s Rima Das, which premiered at Busan in October, and The Tale Of Daye’s Family from Egypt’s Karim El Shenawy, which played as the opening film of Red Sea International Film Festival earlier this month.
The Retrospective strand of the upcoming festival will focus on the “wild, weird and bloody” German genre films of the 1970s with 15 titles including Franz Josef Gottlieb’s Lady Dracula and spaghetti western Deadlock by Roland Klick.
The 75th edition of the festival is set to run from February 13-23 and will mark the first under artistic director Tricia Tuttle. Tom Tykwer’s The Light has been set as the opening film.
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