Skip to main content

Berlin International Film Festival · 2018

Berlin International Film Festival 2018

Berlinale Special

Programme

19 films · 3 reviews

Jump to a film

America Land Of The Freeks

The filmmaker travels across the States to document Trump’s new America, with a small band of unconventional characters in tow.

(Country: German, US; Year: 2017; Director: Ulli Lommel; Stars: Ulli Lommel, Tanner King Barklow, Nola Roeper, Gil Kofman, Chris Kriesa)

Bad Banks

Ambitious Jana is confronted with the unscrupulous, profit-oriented machinations of the world of finance. Her working life is defined by pressure to succeed. She soon has to decide how far she is prepared to go for her career.

(Country: Germany, Luxembourg; Year: 2017; Director: Christian Schwochow; Writer: Lisa Blumenberg, Jana Burbach, Jan Galli; Stars: Paula Beer, Barry Atsma, Désirée Nosbusch, Albrecht Schuch, Mai Duong Kieu)

Becoming Astrid (Unga Astrid)

A biopic focused on the early life of the writer Astrid Lindgren and her decision, on becoming pregnant, to refuse to marry and choose single motherhood.

(Country: Sweden, Germany, Denmark; Year: 2018; Director: Pernille Fischer Christensen; Writer: Kim Fupz Aakeson, Pernille Fischer Christensen; Stars: Alba August, Maria Bonnevie, Trine Dyrholm, Henrik Rafaelsen, Magnus Krepper)

The Bookshop

A widow moves to a small seaside town where she wants to turn a run-down building into a bookshop, but she faces local opposition.

(Country: UK, Spain, Germany; Year: 2017; Director: Isabel Coixet; Stars: Bill Nighy, Emily Mortimer, Hunter Tremayne)

Gurrumul

A documentary about the legendary musician, who was born blind and played the guitar left-handed and upside down.

(Country: Australia; Year: 2017; Director: Paul Williams; Stars: Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu)

Heimebane (Home Ground)

A football coach leaves her successful women’s football team to become the first female coach of a Norwegian premier league men’s team. She wages a fight against ingrained bias and is out to prove that women are every bit as good as men.

(Country: Norway; Year: 2018; Director: Johan Fasting, Arild Andresen; Stars: Ane Dahl Torp, John Carew, Morten Svartveit)

The Happy Prince

Review preview for The Happy Prince

A mixed bag, as while Everett the actor masterfully evokes the mournful mix of decadence and decay of the last years of Wilde, Everett the filmmaker is, like so many before him, too much in love with the brilliant old rogue for his own good.

Amber Wilkinson · 3 out of 5
The last days of Oscar Wilde.

(Country: Germany, Belgium, UK, Italy; Year: 2018; Director: Rupert Everett; Writer: Rupert Everett; Stars: Colin Firth, Emily Watson, Colin Morgan, Rupert Everett, Tom Wilkinson, Anna Chancellor, Ronald Pickup, Béatrice Dalle, Julian Wadham, Joshua McGuire, John Standing, Daniel Weyman, André Penvern, Edwin Thomas, Tom Colley)

Full review

The Interpreter (Dolmetscher)

Review preview for The Interpreter

For the most part this is a lyrical and lightly handled odd couple road movie that achieves a subtle resonance, although it is almost scuppered by a sudden major tonal shift in the film's final act.

Amber Wilkinson · 3.5 out of 5
An 80-year-old translator, Ali Ungár, comes across a book written by a former SS officer recounting his war experiences in Slovakia and realises that one of the chapters may well describe his own parents’ execution.

(Country: Slovak Republic, Czech Republic, Austria; Year: 2018; Director: Martin Šulík; Writer: Martin Šulík; Stars: Peter Simonischek, Jiří Menzel, Zuzana Mauréry, Anita Szvrcsek, Anna Rakovská)

Full review

A Journey To The Fumigated Towns (Viaje A Los Pueblos Fumigados, Reise In Die Vergifteten Dörfer)

A documentary investigation of the social aftermath of monoculture and the uncontrolled use of weedkillers and other chemical substances.

(Country: Argentina; Year: 2017; Director: Fernando E Solanas)

Liberty

Scandinavian businessmen and development workers relax on their farms in Tanzania. Some use local conditions for self-enrichment, others try to make a difference in the development sector – but they are all ignoring the needs of the country’s population.

(Country: Denmark; Year: 2018; Director: Asger Leth, Mikael Marcimain; Stars: Connie Nielsen, Sofie Gråbøl, Carsten Bjørnlund, Magnus Krepper, Charlie Karumi)

The Looming Tower

In the late 1990s there is growing evidence of an imminent attack on the USA. The domestic and foreign security agencies, the FBI and the CIA, engage in a disastrous rivalry that prevents the timely detection of an act of terrorism.

(Country: US; Year: 2017; Director: Dan Futterman, Alex Gibney, Lawrence Wright; Stars: Jeff Daniels, Tahar Rahim, Peter Sarsgaard, Wrenn Schmidt, Bill Camp)

Monster Hunt 2

Following the death of the evil monster king, an eerie lord with dark intentions has ascended to the throne. He puts a bounty on little Wuba, who now finds himself being hunted not only by his own kind, but also by humans

(Country: China, Hong Kong; Year: 2017; Director: Raman Hui; Stars: Tony Chiu Wai Leung, Baihe Bai, Boran Jing, Chris Lee, Yo Yang)

Picnic At Hanging Rock

Mrs Appleyard is the strict headmistress of a girls’ boarding school who watches over the moral education of her charges like a hawk. When her own far from prudish past catches up with her, three of her students mysteriously disappear.

(Country: Australia; Year: 2017; Director: Larysa Kondracki; Stars: Natalie Dormer, Yael Stone, Lola Bessis, Lily Sullivan, Madeleine Madden)

Ryūichi Sakamoto: Async At The Park Avenue Armory

A documentary portrait of the composer with various electronic instruments, a grand piano without a lid, a guitar and a glass panel.

(Country: US, Japan; Year: 2018; Director: Stephen Nomura Schible)

The Silent Revolution (Das Schweigende Klassenzimmer)

During a visit to a cinema in West Berlin, East German high school pupils Theo and Kurt see disturbing newsreel footage of the uprising in Budapest. Back in Stalinstadt, they have the idea of holding a minute’s silence in class for the victims - a decision that has far reaching consequences.

(Country: Germany; Year: 2017; Director: Lars Kraume; Stars: Leonard Scheicher, Tom Gramenz, Lena Klenke, Isaiah Michalski, Jonas Dassler)

Sleeping Bears

When the therapist of teacher Hadas dies in an accident, she receives his session notes in the form of threatening letters. An intrinsically personal story becomes an expedition into the depths of contemporary Israel.

(Country: Israel; Year: 2017; Director: Keren Margalit; Stars: Noa Koler, Yossi Marshek, Alma Zak, Yaakov Zada Daniel, Doron Tavory)

Songwriter

Review preview for Songwriter

While it’s interesting to hear his approach and the steps taken from writing the lyrics to matching the words with the beat, there is still a sense that Songwriter does nothing more than just self-promote.

John-Anthony Disotto · 3 out of 5
Ed Sheeran up close, far away from raving fans and the stage. This personal portrait of the British singer-songwriter, filmed by his cousin Murray Cummings, follows this modest performer’s creative process as he writes a new song from scratch.

(Country: UK; Year: 2017; Director: Murray Cummings; Stars: Ed Sheeran)

Full review

The Terror

British explorer Sir John Franklin’s polar expedition, retold as a historical epic. The vast icy wastes invoke a feeling of claustrophobia aboard his ships where the men are not only fighting nature, but also the balance of power.

(Country: US; Year: 2017; Director: David Kajganich, Soo Hugh, Edward Berger; Stars: Jared Harris, Tobias Menzies, Ciarán Hinds, Paul Ready, Adam Nagaitis)

Usedom - Clear View At The Sea (Usedom - Der Freie Blick Aufs Meer)

A documentary about the Baltic island of Usedom, once a luxury holiday destination, split into a German and a Polish half after the Second World War.

(Country: Germany; Year: 2017; Director: Heinz Brinkmann)