This 12 months’s Berlin Movie Pageant, below new creative director Tricia Tuttle, strikes nearer towards in style tastes than arguably below the stead of Carlo Chatrian. He departed the pageant final 12 months whereas abandoning a legacy of programming a extra arthouse-minded slate. Italian cineaste Chatrian got here from Locarno in addition to extra area of interest festivals all through Europe; Tuttle is an American with a historical past of movie journalism and programming right here within the States and on the BFI London.
Bong Joon Ho’s “Mickey 17” (Warner Bros., March 7) and the Berlin premiere of “A Full Unknown” (Searchlight Photos) introduced stars like Robert Pattinson and Timothée Chalamet (alongside together with his girlfriend Kylie Jenner) to the pageant for viral moments which have put an energizing, social-media-friendly highlight on the European showcase right here within the U.S. “Mickey 17” wants all the assistance it will possibly get, because the sci-fi comedy has been re-dated a number of occasions and, within the David Zaslav-run world of Warner Bros. Discovery, feels prefer it’s not getting a hearty advertising and marketing push (actually much less a plum theatrical date) from its studio. It was get for the revamped Berlinale, below Tuttle and her co-directors of programming, Jacqueline Lyanga and Michael Stütz.
However these aren’t competitors titles eligible for pageant prizes. In the primary competitors this 12 months are movies together with Richard Linklater’s Ethan Hawke-starrer “Blue Moon” (Sony Photos Classics), Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s “Scorching Milk” (IFC) with Fiona Shaw, Michel Franco’s “Desires” with Jessica Chastain (in search of a purchaser), and Mary Bronstein’s Sundance sensation “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” (A24) with Rose Byrne, amongst much less star-driven automobiles that as a substitute replicate the artwork movie scene of Europe. Most are unlikely to cross over to america, however that doesn’t imply they will’t nonetheless have an effect overseas.
The 2025 Berlinale competitors jury is headed up by Todd Haynes, whose narrative characteristic debut “Poison” received a Teddy prize for queer filmmaking there in 1991. He’s joined by jurors Nabil Ayouch (Morocco/France), costume designer Bina Daigeler (Germany), actor Fan Bingbing (China), director Rodrigo Moreno (Argentina), Los Angeles Occasions critic Amy Nicholson (U.S.), and author/director/actor Maria Schrader (Germany).
All participated in a glittery German tv taping on a black-tie opening night time on the 1,600-seat Berlinale Palast, hosted by presenter Désirée Nosbusch, the place Haynes hinted at a “love fest” occurring among the many jurors already as of day one. The opening night time movie, Tom Tykwer’s “The Mild,” made sense as a German movie to open the pageant and replicate the nationwide id of the fest, however the 160-minute white guilt odyssey (additionally set in Berlin) obtained scalding evaluations and didn’t set an incredible tone going forward. However the pageant solely rebounded with quite a lot of acclaimed films afterward.
Collectively, the jury is taking a look at 19 movies to pick out winners of the Golden Bear and different prizes, together with the brand new movie, “Kontinental ’25,” from Radu Jude. The Romanian director received the Golden Bear in 2021 for “Unhealthy Luck Banging or Loony Porn,” which opened stateside from Magnolia Photos later that 12 months and repped his nation on the 2022 Oscars.
Trying on the Display screen Worldwide grid, which averages rankings from 9 European critics, competitors standouts to date are Franco’s bruising immigration romance “Desires,” 2014 Silver Bear winner Linklater’s Lorenz Hart chamber tragicomedy “Blue Moon,” Brazilian director Gabriel Mascaro’s touching septuagenarian sci-fi “The Blue Path,” Frédéric Hambalek’s German telepathy comedy “What Marielle Is aware of,” and “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.” Additionally beloved by critics early within the fest was Huo Meng’s “Residing the Land,” a Nineteen Nineties-set Chinese language coming-of-age story. Ditto French author/director Lucile Hadžihalilović’s “The Ice Tower,” a Lynchian fairy-tale starring Marion Cotillard as a cold display actress within the Seventies; Yellow Veil Photos purchased it throughout the fest for a later North American launch.
I’d anticipate Australian “If I Had Legs” star Byrne to take the Silver Bear for Lead Efficiency (the pageant shifted to gender-neutral performing honors for the 2021 version). That’s a lot the identical path as final 12 months’s main winner, Sebastian Stan, took for “A Completely different Man,” additionally an A24 launch and likewise from Sundance. (And look, he’s now an Oscar nominee, albeit for his different movie, “The Apprentice.”) A win for Byrne, who offers a harrowing efficiency in fixed anguished close-up as an unraveling mom and therapist, would increase the movie’s awards profile into the 12 months. It doesn’t really feel like an Oscar image, however stranger issues have occurred (like Demi Moore and “The Substance” getting all of the nods they did).
Final 12 months’s Berlin winners lineup was stuffed with surprises and a few movies that didn’t pop in North America, although Golden Bear-winning documentary “Dahomey” received a stateside launch from MUBI and represented Senegal on the Oscars shortlist (Mati Diop’s portrait of repatriated African artifacts didn’t make the ultimate 5 docs). Final 12 months, tireless Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo, who places out a characteristic or two yearly, received the Grand Jury Prize for “A Traveler’s Wants.” He usually wins at Berlin, just like the Silver Bear for Greatest Director in 2020 for “The Girl Who Ran.” He’s again on the pageant this 12 months with “What Does That Nature Say to You,” one other booze- and conversation-fueled portrait of an artist and his romantic entanglements. Don’t rely Hong out of profitable a prize once more this 12 months. The movie screens Thursday, February 20.
“Blue Moon,” too, can anticipate to win one thing after rapturous receptions on the press screening and premiere on the Berlinale Palast. Sony Classics releases the interval movie, by which Ethan Hawke dons a bald cap and takes on a a lot shorter stature to play the 5-foot-tall songwriter Hart, later this spring. The thought might’ve been that “Blue Moon” wasn’t preferred sufficient by Cannes to premiere there, and thus Berlin, however Linklater has one other film this 12 months, “Nouvelle Obscure” in regards to the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s “Breathless,” that feels primed for the Croisette as an out-of-competition bow. Similar goes for Jude, whose iPhone-shot social satire “Kontinental ’25” units him up for one more potential Berlin win, however he additionally has a Dracula film popping out later this 12 months, probably at Cannes, too. His movies, although, are likely to play festivals like Locarno or Karlovy Fluctuate.
Ukraine wartime portrait “Timestamp,” which is the one documentary within the competitors this 12 months, has additionally obtained robust evaluations, whereas nonetheless to display is Swiss director Lionel Baier’s 1968-riot-inspired “The Secure Home.” The awards unveil on Saturday, February 22.