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Berlin International Film Festival · 2023

Berlin International Film Festival 2023

Competition

Programme

19 films · 8 reviews

Jump to a film

20,000 Species Of Bees (20.000 especies de abejas)

Review preview for 20,000 Species Of Bees

Otero, who is in almost every scene, carries the film with her fresh and naturalistic performance, which is perfectly complemented by Solaguren’s impressionistic style.

Jennie Kermode · 4.5 out of 5
An eight-year-old explores her identity over a summer in the Basque country.

(Country: Spain; Year: 2023; Director: Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren; Writer: Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren; Stars: Sofía Otero, Patricia López Arnaiz, Ane Gabarain, Itziar Lazkano, Sara Cózar)

Full review

World premiere

Afire (Roter Himmel)

Review preview for Afire

Petzold’s most literary film to date.

Anne-Katrin Titze · 5 out of 5
Tensions and desire bloom among five people at a holiday home by the Baltic Sea.

(Country: Germany; Year: 2023; Director: Christian Petzold; Writer: Christian Petzold; Stars: Thomas Schubert, Paula Beer, Langston Uibel, Enno Trebs, Matthias Brandt)

Full review See: Thomas Schubert on imposter syndrome and tonal ambiguity in Afire , Christian Petzold in conversation on Afire (Roter Himmel), An Affair To Remember, summers, and pronouncing Walter Benjamin and Uwe Johnson , Christian Petzold in conversation on Afire (Roter Himmel) and summer movies

World premiere

Art College 1994

Animation set in 90s China. A group of young people prepare to face a world caught between tradition and modernity.

(Country: China; Year: 2023; Director: Liu Jian; Writer: Liu Jian)

World premiere

Bad Living (Mal Viver)

Five women are running an old hotel. A long-standing, perhaps irreparable conflict weighs down on them. When the young Salomé arrives, old wounds are reopened.

(Country: Portugal, France; Year: 2023; Director: João Canijo)

World premiere

BlackBerry

Review preview for BlackBerry

This is a film built in the edit, a story which can but understood in linear form only in retrospect.

Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
The story of the meteoric rise and catastrophic demise of the world's first smartphone.

(Country: Canada; Year: 2023; Director: Matt Johnson; Writer: Matt Johnson and Matthew Miller, based on the book by Jacquie McNish; Stars: Jay Baruchel, Glenn Howerton, Cary Elwes, Saul Rubinek, Rich Sommer)

Full review See: Q&A with Glenn Howerton about BlackBerry , Interview with Matt Johnson about BlackBerry

World premiere

Disco Boy

Review preview for Disco Boy

If there’s vacillation in general at work, the slippery nature of the film, greased with the sweat of physical and metaphorical dance, remains beguiling.

Amber Wilkinson · 3.5 out of 5
The destinies of a man who has joined the Foreign Legion and another in the Niger Delta intersect.

(Country: France, Italy, Belgium, Poland; Year: 2023; Director: Giacomo Abbruzzese; Writer: Giacomo Abbruzzese; Stars: Franz Rogowski, Morr Ndiaye, Laëtitia Ky, Leon Lučev)

Full review

World premiere

Ingeborg Bachmann - Journey into the Desert (Ingeborg Bachmann - Reise in die Wüste)

The story of the Austrian author and how she was shaped by a trip to Egypt.

(Country: Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Luxembourg; Year: 2023; Director: Margarethe von Trotta; Writer: Margarethe von Trotta; Stars: Vicky Krieps, Ronald Zehrfeld, Tobias Resch, Basil Eidenbenz, Luna Wedler)

World premiere

Limbo

A detective reopens the case of an Aboriginal woman murdered 20 years ago. The people in the victim’s small outback town and her family are silent because the cop is white and the truth is complex.

(Country: Australia; Year: 2023; Director: Ivan Sen; Writer: Ivan Sen; Stars: Simon Baker, Rob Collins, Natasha Wanganeen, Nicholas Hope, Mark Coe)

World premiere

Manodrome

Review preview for Manodrome

Trengove seems determined to defy the standard solutions to this sort of mess.

Jennie Kermode · 3 out of 5
A man loses his grip on reality after becoming involved in a libertarian masculinity cult.

(Country: UK, US; Year: 2023; Director: John Trengove; Writer: John Trengove; Stars: Jesse Eisenberg, Adrien Brody, Odessa Young, Sallieu Sesay, Philip Ettinger)

Full review See: Interview with Jesse Eisenberg about Manodrome , Interview with John Trengove about Manodrome

World premiere

Music

A cinematic riddle, mirror, dream or puzzle in which the Oedipus myth is transposed to a period from the 1980s to the present, from the beaches of Greece to the lakes of Berlin.

(Country: Germany, France, Serbia; Year: 2023; Director: Angela Schanelec; Writer: Angela Schanelec; Stars: Aliocha Schneider, Agathe Bonitzer, Marisha Triantafyllidou, Argyris Xafis)

World premiere

On The Adamant (Sur l'Adamant)

Documentary about patients and caregivers at a floating psychiatric centre on the Seine.

(Country: France, Japan; Year: 2023; Director: Nicolas Philibert)

World premiere

Past Lives

Review preview for Past Lives

To say too much about what happens in each episode would be to spoil the joy of encountering Song’s finely worked screenplay, which lets its characters' emotions glitter in the light.

Amber Wilkinson · 5 out of 5
Nora and Hae Sung, two childhood friends, are separated from each other when Nora’s family emigrates from South Korea. Two decades later, they are reunited in New York where Nora now lives with her American husband.

(Country: US; Year: 2022; Director: Celine Song; Writer: Celine Song; Stars: Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, John Magaro)

Full review

International premiere

The Plough (Le grand chariot)

Three siblings are the latest generation in a family of puppeteers. Will this be the last? A tragic event tests their desire to continue the troupe.

(Country: France, Switzerland; Year: 2022; Director: Philippe Garrel)

World premiere

The Shadowless Tower (Bai Ta Zhi Guang)

Divorced food critic Gu Wentong finds out where the father he had lost contact with as a child is now living. Meanwhile, he begins a relationship with a younger colleague.

(Country: China; Year: 2023; Director: Zhang Lu; Writer: Zhang Lu; Stars: Xin Baiqing, Huang Yao, Tian Zhuangzhuang, Nan Ji, Wang Hongwei)

World premiere

Someday We'll Tell Each Other Everything (Irgendwann werden wir uns alles erzählen)

A young woman begins a relationship with a much older man.

(Country: Germany; Year: 2023; Director: Emily Atef; Writer: Emily Atef; Stars: Marlene Burow, Felix Kramer, Cedric Eich)

World premiere

The Survival Of Kindness (Das Überleben der Freundlichkeit)

BlackWoman is abandoned in a cage in the middle of the desert and left to die. But she is not ready to give up all hope. She escapes, and walks through pestilence and persecution, from desert to mountain to city, to find those who left her to die.

(Country: Australia; Year: 2022; Director: Rolf de Heer; Stars: Mwajemi Hussein, Deepthi Sharma, Darsan Sharma)

International premiere

Suzume

Review preview for Suzume

For lovers of anime, there are Easter eggs aplenty, including more than a few nods to the famed Ghibli studios.

Jane Fae · 4 out of 5
Animated adventure sees a teenager fight to close a series of "Doors of Disaster".

(Country: Japan; Year: 2022; Director: Makoto Shinkai; Writer: Makoto Shinkai; Stars: Voiced by, Nanoka Hara, voiced by Eri Fukatsu, Hokuto Matsumura, Ann Yamane)

Full review

International premiere

Till The End Of The Night (Bis ans Ende der Nacht)

Undercover cop Robert is supposed to gain the trust of an Internet drug dealer by faking a relationship with Leni. But true love is also at play.

(Country: Germany; Year: 2023; Director: Christoph Hochhäusler; Writer: Christoph Hochhäusler; Stars: Timocin Ziegler, Thea Ehre, Michael Sideris)

World premiere

Tótem

Review preview for Tótem

The idea of different things being in and out of focus for the various generations runs through a film that has sweetly comic moments and poignancy in equal measure.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
In a large house, friends and family meet for a dual ritual: it is the birthday of young father and painter Tona, but also a farewell ceremony.

(Country: Mexico, Denmark, France; Year: 2023; Director: Lila Avilés; Writer: Lila Avilés; Stars: Naíma Sentíes, Monserrat Marañon, Marisol Gasé, Saori Gurza, Teresita Sánchez)

Full review See: Lila Avilés on the many worlds of Tótem

World premiere