Many extra doubts than anticipated. The 76th version of the Berlinale, which begins this Thursday, is the second directed by the American Tricia Tuttle, and her dedication to auteur cinema implies that the Competition has grow to be a matter of cinematographic religion. Not to say contradictory: Tuttle was employed to switch Carlo Chatrian and Mariette Rissenbeek, co-responsible for 5 extremely authoritative and political editions (the Berlinale has all the time been a politicized occasion) and to offer a extra in style air to the pageant. With the checklist in hand of the movies that aspire to the Golden Bear, it doesn’t appear that the path has modified. If something, it has intensified.
And it has intensified as a result of the world has grow to be radicalized. In 2025 Tuttle noticed how pro-Palestinian calls for appeared within the contest, when it was apparent that the programming was lame by displaying solely the Israeli facet of struggling. In Germany, any point out of the Arab-Israeli battle is clearly marked by the Holocaust. Even extra so, after the presentation of his movie QueerpanoramaHong Kong filmmaker Jun Li learn some phrases in English despatched by one among his actors, the Iranian Erfran Shekarriz, utilizing the expression “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” In it land of Berlin, a city-state in Germany, the primary a part of the phrase is taken into account by regional courts to represent against the law, since it’s understood that it denies the existence of the State of Israel. Li went to the police station, though in the long run the investigation got here to nothing.
And how has 2026 began? Where 2025 ended. In the primary press convention, which concerned the presentation of the jury led by Wim Wenders, the query that heated up the interventions was: can cinema change the world? Wenders argued: “Cinema takes you out of your universe to travel to another and that is beautiful. Yes, movies can change the world, but not in a political way. No film has really altered the idea of any politician, but it can change people’s idea of how they should live… Cinema has an incredible power to be compassionate and empathetic. The news is not, politics is not. But movies, yes.” The identical particular person accountable for the Berlinale entered into that comfy dialogue: “Cinema affects you, in the sense that it shows different and novel points of view, which broadens the public’s understanding.” To which the director of Paris, Texas y The sky over Berlin He concluded: “No matter how much you watch the news, you are not really informed. Suddenly you can see other aspects.”
It all sounded good, till the following query: the Berlinale has supported the Ukrainian folks, even with an look at President Volodymyr Zelensky’s 2023 inauguration gala through video; has taken the facet of the Iranian folks all these years, and on this version a public dialog was scheduled between two winners of the Golden Bear, the Persians Jafar Panahi (who within the midst of the Oscar marketing campaign has been condemned in his nation) and Mohammad Rasoulof (exiled since May 2024 in Hamburg), a chat postponed in solidarity with the Iranians. And then, the place is the help for the Gazans? Along with Wenders, the remainder of his fellow judges had been shocked: the South Korean actress Bae Doona, the Polish producer Ewa Puszczyńska, the American director Reinaldo Marcus Green, the Nepalese filmmaker Min Bahadur Bham, the Japanese filmmaker Hikari and the Indian movie restorer and historian Shivendra Singh Dungarpur. What’s extra, the video sign was minimize off (half an hour later, the group apologized for the technical issues and posted your entire press convention on YouTube).
Puszczyńska instantly argued that the query was unfair. “Films are not political in your sense of the word. Asking this question is a bit unfair. We use the phrase ‘change the world’, but of course we try to talk to each viewer, make them believe that we cannot be responsible for the decision they make: the decision to support Israel or the decision to support Palestine.” And he defended himself: “There are many wars with genocides, and we don’t talk about that. It is a very complex question, and it is a bit unfair to ask us how we support our governments or not, because that is for politicians to decide.”
Wim Wenders got here to help him: “We have to stay out of politics. We are the counterweight of politics, the opposite of politicians; we have to do the work of the people, not the work of politicians.” Once once more, the Israeli-Palestinian battle was badly negotiated.
Afghan romantic comedy
The contest begins with No Good Men, a movie that performs, with out discovering its place, with the tones of rom-com (romantic comedy) and the tough actuality of the return of the Taliban to energy in Afghanistan in February 2021. It is the third function by Shahrbanoo Sadat, who though he was born in Tehran 35 years in the past, is from an Afghan household and has lived in that nation since his adolescence. The filmmaker spent the pandemic in Germany, returned to Afghanistan and was evacuated when the Taliban triumphed. She herself performs the one feminine tv digicam on an Afghan community. Tired of constructing boring leisure packages, she sneaks into the information and triumphs by reaching what no man can: recording feminine confessions, taking dangers for the right shot. There she begins a flirtation with the star journalist of Kabul News whereas she can not eliminate her husband, a legal responsibility.
In her presentation to the press this Thursday afternoon, she famous: “My life is not a war drama every day. There is a lot of humor and a lot of comedy. And when I started the project, I was with my boyfriend, so I enjoyed a romance. Afghanistan is also like the rest of the world, so I decided: ‘I’m going to make a romantic comedy. What’s more, I’ve made one rom-com politics.” Regarding the title, Sadat – who has recreated Kabul in studios and areas in Hamburg – defined: “It is very, very difficult to be a good man in Afghan society. They all share the same mentality: women are animals, all the women in your family should fear you. In short, being a strong woman is not enough if the system does not support you.” However, she knows some good men: “That’s why I made a film that is a love letter to all of them.”
No Good Men does not compete for the Golden Bear, so it does not enter the very strange competitive section, with a better-known name such as that of the Hungarian Kornél Mundruczó, who after the success of Fragments of a woman —with which Vanessa Kirby earned an Oscar nomination—turns to Amy Adams for another turbulent drama about women and families in At The Sea. Or that of the Brazilian Karim Aïnouz, who usually films in English and who for Rosebush Pruning has recruited Callum Turner, Riley Keough, Jamie Bell, Elle Fanning and Elena Anaya to analyze the rot of a rich American family locked in a villa in Catalonia. It also has powerful names Queen At Sea, by the American Lance Hammer, in which Juliette Binoche and Tom Courtenay are a daughter and her stepfather who together face the dementia of the person they love most in the world: their mother and wife, respectively. However, the safe bet is Josephine, by Beth de Araújo, and which has just won at Sundance: it shows how a girl witnesses a rape and how that aggression affects her, especially in relation to her father (played by Channing Tatum).
Where will there be fame? In the Berlinale Special section, which is the catch-all where the contest includes series, films out of competition and special screenings. There Gore Verbinski presents the science-fiction comedy Good luck, have a good time and don’t diestarring Sam Rockwell, accompanied by Juno Temple and Zazie Beetz. EITHER The Weight, un wéstern con Ethan Hawke y Russell Crowe. O The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, with John Turturro and Steve Buscemi. That’s where the documentary comes in. The Ballad of Judas Priest, co-directed by Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello; and the satirical mockumentary The Moment, with British star Charli XCX as co-writer and star.
As for Spanish cinema or in Spanish, Tuttle’s choice staff doesn’t give a lot pleasure to this language, when it was normally a splendid competitors with Latin American cinema. In Competition he’s, alone, Flies, by the Mexican Fernando Eimbcke (Duck season, Club sandwich). In the Panorama part there can be Spanish cinema: Ian de la Rosa debuts within the function with the excellent Ivan & Hadoum, a chronicle of an nearly unimaginable love within the Almeria greenhouses. And in Berlinale Special Series, Ravalearby Pol Rodríguez and Isaki Lacuesta, illustrates, with a tone of thriller, how hypothesis crushes household companies within the Barcelona neighborhood of Raval.
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