Berlinale – Berlinale: “Explore a wide variety of worlds”

The good news is that there will be no question of politicians at the opening of this year’s Berlinale. Neither the Minister of Culture Claudia Roth nor the ruling mayor of Berlin, Kai Wegner, will appear at the opening ceremony. This is one of the innovations that the director Tricia Tuttle, which has been in office since April 2024. The Berlin International Film Festival celebrates their 75th anniversary this year. The 55-year-old American Tuttle, who recently led the London Film Festival, seems to be focusing on a more important function of the festival than being a stage for politics. In her greeting at the Berlinale press conference, she wrote: »All over the world, people are withdrawing more and more to private and are ready to make the supposedly other to make the supposedly stranger contemptuous. The cinema helps us to see the world with other people’s eyes and is therefore a great gift alone. In the coming days, the participating filmmakers will invite the festival audience to explore a wide variety of worlds. “

At the start of the anniversary edition, the international jury is primarily presented. This year the seven-member jury heads the US director Todd Haynes (“May December”, “Carol”). From Germany, the costume designer Bina Daigeler and the director Maria Schrader are members of the jury. As part of the opening gala, the Scottish actress Tilda Swinton, who is now almost present at almost every renowned festival, is also awarded the golden honorary bear for her life’s work. Then the film “Das Licht” by the German director Tom Tykwer, who is shown in addition to competition and in the Berlinale Special Gala section, will open the festival. The film, in which Lars Eidinger and Nicolette Krebitz play the leading roles, tells of a German middle class family, whose world is completely changed after a Syrian housekeeper comes into life.

With Tricia Tuttle for the first time in the history of the Berlinale, a woman is alone at the head of the festival. Another good news is that this year the number of directors involved has increased in the program. 88 directors are involved in the 199 films (apart from retrospectives or historical works) that run in the program in 2025 (41 percent). In the competition, 19 works from 26 countries compete. Women directed or co-director in eight titles.

The new director has also introduced a competition called Perspectives for feature film debuts. The Perspectives series, which is reminiscent of the former Berlinale Saved Perspective German cinema and is quite similar to the Venice Film Festival section, should now make new talents more visible at the Berlinale. A new venue was even created for this: In the Stage Bluemax Theater on Marlene-Dietrich-Platz, the premieres of the perspective are now to take place. The Encouns section introduced by the previous director Carlo Chatrian was deleted.

Heads come and go, but the South Korean director Hong Sangsoo still seems to be an integral part of the Berlinale. He has a film in his program again this year. In the case of all innovations, some traditions are continued. The glamor of the festival is still being maintained. In addition to the German prominence – including Sibel Kekilli, Nina Hoss, Rosa von Praunheim, Burhan Qurbani and Edward Berger – international stars such as Robert Pattinson, Timothée Chalamet, Jacob Elordi, Marion Cotillard, Rebecca Hall, Sam Riley, Vicky Krieps, Gaspar Noé, Bong Joon Ho and Ben Whishaw.

One of the highlights of the 75th edition, which takes place until February 23, is the competition film “Blue Moon” by the well-known US director Richard Linklater (“School of Rock”, “Boyhood”, “Before” film trilogy) about the songwriter Lorenz Hard. The film – with Ethan Hawke, Andrew Scott and Margaret Qualley – tells the events in the New York Bar “Sardi’s” on the evening of March 31, 1943, where hard experienced an emotional low – against the background of the Second World War.

The Romanian filmmaker Radu Jude, who was awarded the Golden Bear of the Berlinale in 2021, also presents his new work »Continental ’25 about a bailiff in the competition that conducts the evacuation of a homeless from the basement of a house and now has to live with the tragic consequences of her decision .

In addition to competition, the documentary films “The German People” and “Je n’avais que le néant -› Shoah ‹par Lanzmann” (“All i Had was Nothingness”) are shown in the Berlinale Special section. In “The German People”, the director Marcin Wierzchowski, born in Warsaw, deals with the racist attack in Hanau in 2020. And in “All I Had Was Nothingness” the French filmmaker Guillaume Ribot explores the unpublished film material from Claude Lanzmann’s “Shoah” the year 1985.

After a not so successful edition of 2024 under the direction of Carlo Chatrian and Mariette Rissenbeek, in particular because of the non -convincing film selection of the competition, many in the industry are now waiting for how the handwriting of the new director of the Berlin forms the image of the Berlinale. Everyone seems to want to strengthen their work. Even the federal government has added an additional up to 1.9 million euros for this anniversary edition. It is to be hoped that she will succeed in the 75th Berlinale.