Festival Director Tricia Tuttle has unveiled a powerhouse lineup for Berlin’s 76th edition, mixing Oscar-nominated stars with bold emerging voices in a competition that spans continents and genres.
Running from February 12 to 22, the Berlinale’s Competition features 22 films that challenge the status quo of independent cinema.
From Amy Adams’ return to dramatic form to Sandra Hüller’s first major role since her Oscar-nominated performances, this year’s selection promises red carpet glamor alongside groundbreaking storytelling.
The festival also introduces 13 titles in its Perspectives sidebar, dedicated to first-time filmmakers who are reshaping cinema’s future.
Star Power Meets Artistic Vision
Kornél Mundruczó’s At The Sea leads the Competition lineup with Amy Adams portraying a former dancer confronting buried trauma after rehab. The film marks a return to Cape Cod family drama territory, but with the psychological depth Mundruczó became known for in previous festival darlings.
Joining Adams in the star-studded roster is Sandra Hüller in Markus Schleinzer’s Rose, a 17th-century period piece set in an isolated Protestant German village. Hüller plays opposite a soldier claiming inheritance rights, sparking suspicion and eventual confrontation among villagers.
This marks Hüller’s first major big-screen appearance following her acclaimed performances in both Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest.
Karim Aïnouz’s highly anticipated Rosebush Pruning assembles an ensemble cast including Callum Turner, Riley Keough, Jamie Bell, Elle Fanning, and Pamela Anderson. Set in a Spanish villa, the film explores American siblings wallowing in isolation and inherited fortune until buried family secrets threaten everything.
Returning Festival Favorites
Indigenous Australian filmmaker Warwick Thornton brings Wolfram to Competition, a 1930s Western following three Aboriginal children escaping brutal servitude in wolfram mines. Thornton won Cannes’ Caméra d’Or for Samson and Delilah in 2009 and returned with The New Boy starring Cate Blanchett in 2023.
German-Turkish filmmaker İlker Çatak returns with Yellow Letters, his first feature since Teacher’s Lounge enjoyed a buzzy awards season run in 2024. Set in Turkey, the film follows celebrated artist couple Derya and Aziz as state targeting and ideological conflicts push their marriage toward collapse.
Two-time Silver Bear winner Angela Schanelec unveils My Wife Cries, exploring ordinary workday disruption when crane operator Thomas receives an unexpected hospital call about his wife.
Germany’s Strong Showing
German filmmakers dominate this year’s Competition with multiple entries showcasing diverse storytelling approaches.
Eva Trobisch, who made waves with 2018 MeToo drama All Is Well, debuts her third feature Home Stories. The film follows Lea’s search for identity within and beyond her family’s hotel in former East Germany forests after being asked by reality TV producers: “Who are you and what defines you?”
Anke Blondé’s Dust explores Belgium’s late-1990s tech boom collapse, following visionary entrepreneurs Luc and Geert as fraud news breaks and they spend their final day of freedom seeking redemption.
World Cinema Representation
French-Senegalese director Alain Gomis presents Dao, organically intertwining a French wedding with a Guinea-Bissau commemoration. The film explores family bonds and heritage living between two worlds through perpetual circular movement framing reality.
Chadian director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s Soumsoum, the Night of the Stars follows 17-year-old Kellou, gifted with supernatural powers she doesn’t understand. Her encounter with Aya forges a mystical world where visible and invisible converge.
Haroun ranks among Africa’s most feted directors, with past films including A Dry Season, A Screaming Man, and Lingui.
Unique Genre Explorations
Grant Gee’s Everybody Digs Bill Evans starring Bill Pullman and Laurie Metcalf portrays legendary jazz pianist Bill Evans’ inner life after losing his bassist and musical soulmate in a tragic crash. The film explores grief through musical genius struggling to learn that sometimes intermission becomes part of music itself.
Yoshitoshi Shinomiya’s animated feature A New Dawn follows Keitaro living in a fireworks factory facing closure. Determined to unravel the mystery of the Shuhari—a mythical firework created by his disappeared father—Keitaro races against time before factory shutdown.
Documentary form enters Competition through Anna Fitch and Banker White’s Love is a Rebellious Bird. Anna spends a decade building a one-third-scale version of late friend Yo’s house she can fit into, along with a puppet of Yo, exploring their deep bond that defied age and experience gaps.
Perspectives: First-Time Filmmakers
Veteran UK actor and musician Ashley Walters (Top Boy) makes his feature directorial debut with Animol. Behind young offender institution walls, Troy enters a brutal world of gangs, loyalty, and violence where an unspoken bond with a fellow inmate becomes dangerous vulnerability.
Israeli director Assaf Machnes’ Where To? explores encounters between a reserved 55-year-old Palestinian Uber driver and a young, outspoken Israeli repeatedly getting lost in Berlin.
Rafael Manuel’s Filipiñana follows new girl Isabel, strangely drawn to Dr. Palanca, president of her workplace country club. As she pieces together violent undercurrents beneath pristine surfaces, Isabel realizes sinister shared history connects them.
Festival’s Mission Amid Industry Challenges
Tuttle addressed battles facing independent cinema in her opening remarks.
It’s a battle to keep independent cinemas open; to keep distributors and exhibitors who champion independent film thriving and making sure they can still take risks. It’s a battle to ensure that cinema culture can retain its breadth.
She emphasized the festival’s dual role: celebrating star power while championing emerging voices.
We relish the role that we play in building anticipation for bold and new and unknown work, breaking new voices, and also enabling discovery of cinema.
This balance defines Tuttle’s second edition at the helm, mixing critically acclaimed directors with first-time filmmakers across diverse cultural backgrounds and storytelling approaches.
Notable Themes Across Selections
Several films explore family secrets and identity crises. Leyla Bouzid’s In a Whisper follows Lilia returning to Tunisia for her uncle’s funeral, determined to confront family secrets and unravel his mysterious death.
Anthony Chen’s We Are All Strangers examines how life-altering events force 21-year-old Junyang and his girlfriend to face reality while his father struggles to hold their modest life together.
Historical trauma surfaces in multiple entries. Juan Pablo Sallato’s The Red Hangar depicts Air Force Captain Jorge Silva torn between duty and conscience as Chile’s 1973 military coup unfolds and his academy transforms into a detention center.
Mental health and caregiving feature prominently in Lance Hammer’s Queen at Sea, where Juliette Binoche portrays a woman whose advanced dementia erodes communication ability while her husband and daughter navigate love’s fragile boundaries between care, protection, and autonomy.
From supernatural powers in Chad to folk dancing dreams in Argentina, from Belgian tech boom collapse to Finnish forest nightmares, the 76th Berlinale promises cinema that challenges, provokes, and ultimately celebrates storytelling’s transformative power across all cultural boundaries.