The Berlin Film Festival announced on Wednesday the full lineups for the Panorama, Forum, and Generation sections of its 74th edition, which will take place from February 15 to February 25. The Panorama program will feature 31 works, including one series and 25 films premiering globally for the first time.
Michael Stütz, the head of the Panorama section, mentioned in a press release on the festival’s official website that the films selected for the section reflect the current era of global crises, wars, and social divisions. He added, “The selected collection expresses its stances in various ways and builds bridges between life experiences and the cinematic possibilities that inspire us to look to the future.”
Panorama Films
Among the Panorama films is “Crossing” by Georgian-Swedish director Levan Akin, his first feature film since the 2019 Cannes Festival, opening the Panorama screenings. “Crossing” follows a retired teacher, as her search for her long-missing niece leads her to Istanbul, where her life changes.
French director André Téchiné’s “Les gens d’à côté”, starring Isabelle Huppert, imagines how neighbors with conflicting global views risk taking meaningful steps toward reconciliation.
“Diaries from Lebanon”, also part of the Panorama, follows director Mariam El Hajj tracking three generations in their quest to rewrite Lebanon’s national narrative – a portrayal of a country beset by political crises with publicly known culprits.
Central Africa is represented by two documentaries, “In Africa” by director David Pierre Fila, embarking on a contemplative philosophical journey through the Central African Republic, and Nelson Makengo’s “Up At Night”, capturing the plight of parts of Kinshasa suffering from power cuts for months following floods, with storytelling revealed through spoken words, oral history, and song.
Forum
Barbara Wurm, coordinator of the Forum, speaks about the selection criteria for the Forum films, stating “It was wonderful to see how many films attempted to address the major crises of our time, such as poverty, inequality, war, post-war trauma, or new liberalism or new autocracy, while also focusing on enlightenment, reflection, and empathy.”
The 54th edition of the Forum section presents 30 films, including American independent cinema through Pulitzer Prize-winner Annie Baker’s debut feature “Janet Planet”, a story about a mother-daughter relationship. From South Korea, “Exhuma”, set in Los Angeles, tells of a wealthy family invoking a “shamanic exorcist” after supernatural events to save their newborn.
The Forum also features the debut film by German-Iranian cinematographer Faraz Fesharaki, “What Did You Dream Last Night?”, an exploration of a diasporic family’s experience.
Also included in the section is “The Visitor” by Canadian director Bruce LaBruce, filmed in London and inspired by Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini’s “Teorema”, where a stranger disrupts a bourgeois family, irreversibly altering their lives.
Generation Section
The Generation section showcases 32 films, with 7 premieres and 22 world firsts. Generation 14plus opens with the world premiere of “Last Swim” by UK-based director Sasha Natevani, tracking a day and night in the life of a British-Iranian girl waiting for crucial exam results while grappling with the challenges she faces.
Program director Sebastian Markt comments on the festival’s website, “In light of the catastrophic conditions we see all over the world today, which appear disastrous from the perspective of youth and adults alike, the question of what cinema can be as an art form and social space frequently arises.”
Explaining the program’s goal, Markt says, “This program is our attempt to formulate an answer: the films reveal the cracks in our world, make them perceptible, invent forms to make things visible and expressive, and create images that could become material for some of these cracks to be potentially mended.”
