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Berlin International Film Festival · 2023

Berlin International Film Festival 2023

Panorama

Programme

36 films · 11 reviews

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After

A club in Paris. Driving techno beats sweep everyone away. People dance, consume and talk. Félicie meets Saïd and takes him to her place for an afterparty. On the cusp between night and day, different lives and views collide.

(Country: France; Year: 2023; Director: Anthony Lapia; Stars: Louise Chevillotte, Majd Mastoura, Natalia Wiszniewska)

All the Colours Of The World Are Between Black And White

Bambino and Bawa meet in Lagos and hit it off immediately. During their long trips around the city, they develop a deep affection for each other. But in a society which considers homosexuality taboo, they feel the pressure of social norms.

(Country: Nigeria; Year: 2023; Director: Babatunde Apalowo; Stars: Tope Tedela, Riyo David, Martha Ehinome Orhiere, Uchechika Elumelu, Floyd Anekwe)

Almamula

Review preview for Almamula

A semi-autobiographical film with a potent sense of place, Almamula alternates between realism and fantasy, its camerawork reflecting the conflicting ways of thinking at its core.

Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
12-year-old Nino is assaulted for being homosexual. In an effort to protect the boy, his parents move the family to a small rural village.

(Country: France, Argentina, Italy; Year: 2023; Director: Juan Sebastián Torales; Writer: Juan Sebastián Torales; Stars: Nicolás Díaz, Martina Grimaldi, María Soldi, Cali Coronel)

Full review See: Interview with Juan Sebastián Torales about Almamula

Ambush (Ghaath)

An unsparing psychological portrait of the civil war that has been raging in central India for over 50 years. Set in the middle of the jungle, we see what happens to perpetrators and victims whose lives are marked by a constant proximity to violence and death.

(Country: India; Year: 2023; Director: Chhatrapal Ninawe; Stars: Jitendra Joshi, Milind Shinde, Janardan Kadam, Dhananjay Mandaokar, Suruchi Adarkar)

And, Towards Happy Alleys

A passionate declaration of love for the cinema and poetry of Iran, which also offers a frank view of the precarious situation for critics of the regime and shows the uncompromising daily struggle of Iranian women against their oppression.

(Country: India; Year: 2023; Director: Sreemoyee Singh)

The Beast In The Jungle (La Bête dans la jungle)

The club as a place of endless (im)possibilities. A man and a woman wait here together for 25 years for a mysterious, all-changing event to occur. From 1979 to 2004: from disco to techno. A love story and an obsession.

(Country: France, Belgium, Austria; Year: 2023; Director: Patric Chiha; Stars: Anaïs Demoustier, Tom Mercier, Béatrice Dalle, Martin Vischer, Sophie Demeyer)

The Burdened (Al Murhaqoon)

During the civil war in Yemen, Isra’a becomes pregnant again and, together with her husband, she decides to have an abortion. But this creates enormous problems, including in their relationship.

(Country: Yemen, Sudan, Saudi Arabia; Year: 2023; Director: Amr Gamal; Stars: Khaled Hamdan, Abeer Mohammed, Samah Alamrani, Awsam Abdulrahman, Shahd Algonfedy)

The Castle (El Castillo)

The inheritance from her former boss is a poisoned chalice for Indigenous housekeeper Justina: a huge, derelict mansion in the back of beyond. Justina’s daughter Alexia would much prefer to return to Buenos Aires and work as a car mechanic. A dark fairy tale.

(Country: Argentina, France; Year: 2023; Director: Martín Benchimol; Stars: Justina Olivo, Alexia Caminos Olivo)

The Cemetery Of Cinema (Au Cimetière De La Pellicule)

Review preview for The Cemetery Of Cinema

Eventually, Diallo will travel far beyond the villages, to another country, to continue his quest, going to lengths few documentarians would consider - but what he learns there will reveal that the real answer lies back home.

Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
Thierno Souleymane Diallo sets out with his camera in search of the birth of filmmaking in Guinea.

(Country: France, Senegal, Guinea, Saudi Arabia; Year: 2023; Director: Thierno Souleymane Diallo; Stars: Thierno Souleymane Diallo)

Full review

Do You Love Me? (Ty mene lubysh?)

Ukraine at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Vivacious 17-year-old Kira witnesses her family and the country she lives in falling apart. The transformations in her life arrive gradually but are sweeping. The whole world is shaking.

(Country: Ukraine, Sweden; Year: 2023; Director: Tonia Noyabrova; Stars: Karyna Khymchuk, Maksym Myhayilychenko, Natalia Lazebnikova, Oleksandr Zhyla, Daria Palagnyuk)

Drifter

Moritz has moved to Berlin to be with his boyfriend, but their relationship soon ends. The 22-year-old embarks on a journey filled with kinks, metamorphoses and self-discovery into the depths of Berlin’s party scene.

(Country: Germany; Year: 2023; Director: Hannes Hirsch; Stars: Lorenz Hochhuth, Cino Djavid, Gustav Schmidt, Oscar Hoppe, Marie Tragousti)

Femme

Review preview for Femme

The tension is masterfully handled in a revenge thriller narrative which also poses difficult ethical questions.

Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
Jules is a drag artist in London. After a performance, he is brutally attacked and, traumatised, withdraws into himself. Months later, he recognises his assailant in a gay sauna and begins an affair with him, incognito. A revenge thriller.

(Country: UK; Year: 2023; Director: Sam H Freeman, Ng Choon Ping; Writer: Sam H Freeman, Ng Choon Ping; Stars: George MacKay, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett)

Full review

Green Night

Two lone female fighters who have learned to rely on no one but themselves venture into Seoul’s underworld. In search of the big hit that could mean liberation from their useless husbands, these disparate women grow closer.

(Country: Hong Kong, China; Year: 2023; Director: Han Shuai; Stars: Fan Bingbing, Lee Joo Young, Kim Young Ho)

Hello Dankness

Assembling hundreds of film clips and media images, artist duo Soda Jerk creates a startling narrative about the changes undergone by American society since Trump, reflecting on contemporary cultural values.

(Country: Australia; Year: 2022; Director: Soda Jerk)

Heroic

Luis, an 18-year-old boy with Indigenous roots, enters the Heroic Military College in hopes of ensuring a better future. There, he encounters a rigid and institutionally violent system designed to turn him into a perfect soldier.

(Country: Mexico, Sweden; Year: 2023; Director: David Zonana; Writer: David Zonana; Stars: Santiago Sandoval Carbajal, Fernando Cuautle, Mónica del Carmen, Esteban Caicedo, Carlos Gerardo García, Isabel Yudice)

Inside

After a robbery goes wrong, art thief Nemo finds himself trapped in a swanky New York penthouse. Locked in by the high-end security system and surrounded by nothing but priceless works of art, he must fight to survive.

(Country: Greece, Germany, Belgium; Year: 2023; Director: Vasilis Katsoupis; Stars: Willem Dafoe)

Iron Butterflies

Review preview for Iron Butterflies

Liubyi’s film succeeds in bringing home not just the enormity of the crash itself but of the scale of what was lost aboard.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
In summer 2014, sunflower fields and coal mines in eastern Ukraine turned into a 12 square kilometer crime scene. A multi-layered investigation into the downing of flight MH17, in which a butterfly-shaped shrapnel was found in the pilot's body, implicated the state responsible for a war crime that remains unpunished.

(Country: Ukraine, Germany; Year: 2023; Director: Roman Liubyi)

Full review See: Roman Liubyi on mixing dance and performance into documentary Iron Butterflies

Joan Baez I Am A Noise

Intimate and candid portrait of American music legend and civil rights activist Joan Baez that interweaves images from her farewell tour with previously unseen footage and highly intimate insights into her life and emotions.

(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Karen O'Connor, Miri Navasky, Maeve O'Boyle; Stars: Joan Baez, Mimi Farina, Bob Dylan, David Harris)

Kokomo City

Review preview for Kokomo City

It’s thrilling to watch a filmmaker like Smith throw a wrench in the gears and deliver an unapologetic ode to outcasts that’s every bit as punk rock as its subjects.

Jeremy Mathews · 4 out of 5
Four Black transgender sex workers explore the dichotomy between the Black community and themselves, while confronting issues long avoided.

(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: D Smith)

Full review

Matria

A vibrant portrait of a woman in a Galician fishing village who is struggling to get by with hard work and rough charm.

(Country: Spain; Year: 2023; Director: Álvaro Gago; Stars: María Vázquez, Santi Prego, Soraya Luaces, E R Cunha "Tatán", Susana Sampedro)

Midwives

Sofia and Louise are newly qualified midwives. They quickly encounter the challenges of everyday hospital life.

(Country: France; Year: 2023; Director: Léa Fehner; Stars: Khadija Kouyaté, Héloïse Janjaud, Myriem Akheddiou, Quentin Vernede, Tarik Kariouh)

Opponent (Motståndaren)

Review preview for Opponent

It’s a tremendously challenging role, in which Maadi excels.

Jennie Kermode · 4.5 out of 5
Iman, an Iranian, lives with his family in Sweden in an ever-changing succession of refugee hostels. To increase his chances of obtaining residence permits for them all, he resumes his career as a wrestler – and is confronted with the reason he had to flee.

(Country: Sweden; Year: 2023; Director: Milad Alami; Writer: Milad Alami; Stars: Payman Maadi, Marall Nasiri, Björn Elgerd, Ardalan Esmaili, Arvin Kananian)

Full review See: Interview with Milad Alami about Opponent

Passages

Review preview for Passages

One of the most subtle films of the ongoing year.

Levan Tskhovrebadze · 3.5 out of 5
A married man cheats on his husband with a woman... then tells him about it.

(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Ira Sachs; Writer: Mauricio Zacharias; Stars: Franz Rogowski, Ben Whishaw, Adèle Exarchopoulos)

Full review

Perpetrator

Review preview for Perpetrator

Perpetrator heralds the joyous rising up of a regiment of monstrous women.

Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
On her 18th birthday, tough-girl Jonny eats a cake baked by her aunt according to a magical family recipe and undergoes a radical metamorphosis.

(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Jennifer Reeder; Writer: Jennifer Reeder; Stars: iah McKirnan, Alicia Silverstone, Christopher Lowell, Melanie Liburd, Ireon Roach)

Full review See: Interview with Jennifer Reeder about Perpetrator

Property (Propriedade)

When rebelling workers occupy Teresa’s family estate, she flees at the last minute into an armoured car. She is trapped, but refuses to negotiate.

(Country: Brazil; Year: 2022; Director: Daniel Bandeira; Stars: Malu Galli, Zuleika Ferreira, Tavinho Teixeira, Samuel Santos, Edilson Silva)

The Quiet Migration

Carl is expected someday to take over his parents’ agribusiness in a rural backwater of Denmark. But, as an adopted child, he also longs to learn more about his South Korean heritage.

(Country: Denmark; Year: 2023; Director: Malene Choi; Stars: Cornelius Won Riedel-Clausen, Bjarne Henriksen, Bodil Jørgensen, Clara Thi Thanh Heilmann Jensen, Dawid Ściupidro)

Reality

A snapshot of recent US history and, using unedited original dialogue from an FBI recording, re-enacts the 2017 search of whistle-blower Reality Winner’s home as a tense chamber piece.

(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Tina Satter; Stars: Sydney Sweeney, Josh Hamilton, Marchánt Davis)

Silver Haze

Franky comes from a gritty East London borough and works as a nurse. When she falls head over heels in love with her patient Florence, her life changes profoundly.

(Country: Netherlands, UK; Year: 2023; Director: Sacha Polak)

Sira

After a brutal attack, a young nomad refuses to surrender to her fate without a fight and instead takes a stand against Islamist terror. A feminist counterpoint to current reporting from the Sahel region.

(Country: Burkina Faso, France, Germany, Senegal; Year: 2023; Director: Apolline Traoré; Stars: Nafissatou Cissé, Mike Danon, Lazare Minoungou, Nathalie Vairac, Ruth Werner)

The Siren (La Sirène)

Iran, 1980. After an Iraqi missile strike, the oil metropolis of Abadan descends into chaos. Fourteen-year-old Omid, who works as a food delivery boy, is searching for his missing brother – and for an escape route out of the besieged city. Animation.

(Country: France, Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium; Year: 2023; Director: Sepideh Farsi)

Sisi & I (Sisi & Ich, Sisi And I)

Review preview for Sisi & I

Sisi & I weaves a tapestry of finely observed moments with the sparkling duo of Wolff and Hüller at the top of their game.

Anne-Katrin Titze · 5 out of 5
In this wild reinterpretation of the “Sisi” myth, the focus is on Austrian Empress Elisabeth’s close friendship with her last lady-in-waiting, Irma Countess von Sztáray, who falls in love with the charismatic Sisi and is captivated by her modern ideas.

(Country: Germany, Switzerland, Austria; Year: 2023; Director: Frauke Finsterwalder; Stars: Sandra Hüller, Susanne Wolff, Georg Friedrich, Stefan Kurt, Sophie Hutter)

Full review

Stams

The ski boarding school in Stams in the Tyrolean Alps is considered a training ground for the very best. The goal: the Olympics. Over the course of one academic year, the film closely follows the young skiing elite in their meticulous daily training regimen.

(Country: Austria; Year: 2023; Director: Bernhard Braunstein; Stars: Sophia Waldauf, Martina Ambrosi, Eva-Maria Kofler, Pascal Mair, Kevin Kirchebner)

The Teachers' Lounge (Das Lehrerzimmer)

Review preview for The Teachers' Lounge

Thrums from start to almost finish with the sweaty tension of a looming maths test.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
When one of her students is suspected of theft, teacher Carla Nowak decides to get to the bottom of the matter. Caught between her ideals and the school system, the consequences of her actions threaten to break her.

(Country: Germany; Year: 2023; Director: İlker Çatak; Writer: İlker Çatak; Stars: Leonie Benesch, Leonard Stettnisch, Eva Löbau, Michael Klammer, Anne-Kathrin Gummich)

Full review See: llker Çatak on his cinematic inspirations, Wim Wenders and The Teachers’ Lounge

Transfariana

An unexpected love story between a trans former sex worker and a FARC rebel begins in a Colombian prison and leads to an alliance in solidarity between trans activists and FARC militants who have laid down their arms. Documentary

(Country: France, Colombia; Year: 2023; Director: Joris Lachaise)

Under The Sky Of Damascus

Experiencing violence is commonplace for Syrian women but they do not discuss the prevalence of – often sexual – exploitation for fear of revenge. A collective of young women want to break the taboo with a theatre project. But how free are they themselves?

(Country: Germany, Denmark, US, Syria; Year: 2023; Director: Heba Khaled, Talal Derki, Ali Wajeeh)