Herzsprung by Helke Misselwitz, Germany 1992
Film festivals provide a space for artistic expression and enable peaceful dialogue. They are places of encounter and exchange and contribute to international understanding. We believe that through the power of films and open discussions, we can help foster empathy, awareness, understanding – even and especially in painful times like these.
Our sympathy goes out to all the victims of the humanitarian crises in the Middle East and elsewhere. We want everyone’s suffering to be recognized and for our program to be open to discussing different perspectives on the complexity of the world. We are also concerned to see that anti- Semitism, anti-Muslim resentment and hate speech are spreading in Germany and around the world. As a cultural institution, we take a firm stand against all forms of discrimination and are committed to intercultural understanding.
Mé el Aïn by Meryam Joobeur, Tunisia / France / Canada / Norway / Qatar / Saudi Arabia 2024
No Other Land by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor
Das deutsche Kettensägenmassaker by Christoph Schlingensief, Germany 1990
Adieu tortue by Selin Öksüzoğlu, France / Turkey 2024
Memorias de un cuerpo que arde by Antonella Sudasassi Furniss, Costa Rica / Spain 2024
The Berlin International Film Festival is a place for dialogue and the exchanging of ideas. This year, the international situation once again prompts us to deliberately engage in this process at the festival’s events and in the discussions taking place after the film screenings and in the supporting program. The current humanitarian disaster in the Middle East in particular presents us with many challenges. As a festival, we want to strengthen society’s ability to talk about conflicts. This includes the war in Ukraine whose second anniversary is marked during this year’s Berlinale. We are greatly concerned about the large number of violent and non-violent crises, conflicts or wars.
The “AfroBerlin” partnership event is expanding the already established conference and networking program in the European Film Market with its aim to create more space and better access for filmmakers from underrepresented communities and the Global South. And independent filmmakers from Iran and Belarus as well as representatives from the Ukrainian film industry continue to receive our support.
Anaar Daana by Nishi Duga / India 2024
Dostoevskij by Damiano & Fabio D’Innocenzo, Italy 2024
Batalla en el cielo by Carlos Reygadas, Mexico / Germany / Belgium / France 2005
Gloria! by Margherita Vicario, Italy / Switzerland 2024
Intercepted by Oksana Karpovych, Canada / France / Ukraine 2024
Our special “Berlinale Meets Fußball” project sees the festival participating in the cultural program around the European Football Championship that is being held in Germany in 2024 with the commissioning of eleven short films about eleven youth teams. For many young people who play football in Germany, sport and being together in a team offers them the opportunity to directly experience the importance of social issues such as community, diversity and inclusion. The resulting compilation film will be going on tour throughout Germany after its premiere at the Berlinale.
For me, in the coming days, the beating heart of Berlin and the festival is on and around the red carpet where the joy and curiosity of the audience and the filmmakers are brought closely together. I wish you all very special film experiences, interesting encounters and good conversations! – Mariëtte Rissenbeek, Executive Director
Another End by Piero Messina / Italy 2024
Comme le feu by Philippe Lesage, Canada / France 2024
The Fable by Raam Reddy, India / USA 2024
Faruk by Aslı Özge, Germany / Turkey / France 2024
Each edition of the Berlinale chronicles the past year and introduces the year to come. From this perspective, the festival program is like a tree with its roots in the past that projects its branches into the future. The work undertaken in collaboration with a wonderful team translates into expectations we all have for the tales that have stimulated our minds and that we are now offering to the festival goers. If I were to try and capture the entire program in a glance, I would not see a dominant color but, instead, an underlying idea.
Porzellan by Annika Birgel / Germany 2024
Goosfand by Hadi Babaeifar, Iran 2024
Ivo by Eva Trobisch, Germany 2024
Banale Tage by Peter Welz / Germany 1991
In a present in which all types of images are so prevalent, and we are so quick to consume them and then set them aside, films perform an opposing action. Film images, too, need to overlap with previous ones in order to exist. But unlike in the world of media, film relies on the persistence of images. Images that, sometimes for obvious but more often mysterious reasons, remain captured in our minds. Images that endure, like trees in a storm. In the silent tragedy of images without bodies, of figures and data created out of nothing, of manipulated sounds, the moving images of this festival are precious, like a forest facing extinction. Compared with the ease with which we dispose of images made for personal, immediate consumption, moving them off our screens with a flick of a finger, film images remain. They are part of our active memory; signs that certificate the past and allow us to imagine the future.
The films of the 74th Berlinale demand our attention. Even when they entertain – and there are several comedies in the program – they do so to remind us that we are beings made of flesh and blood. This is what Edgar Reitz and Martin Scorsese, the two masters to whom this year’s festival is paying homage, tell us. To film a character is to be a guarantor of his or her story and this is a responsibility that cannot be taken lightly. Especially today. – Carlo Chatrian, Artistic Director
Cuckoo by Tilman Singer, Germany / USA 2024
Aguacuario by José Eduardo Castilla Ponce / Mexico 2023
Iris by Maria Lassnig, Austria / USA 1971
Demba by Mamadou Dia, Senegal / Germany / Qatar 2024
“We are particularly proud of this year’s selection which achieves the best possible balance between auteurs we cherish and admire and powerful new voices in the independent cinema landscape. What drives the selection is of course the variety of the stories and their storytellers, but also and even more so the plurality of styles with the goal of showing the extensive possibilities of cinema language.”
20 films will compete for the Golden and the Silver Bears, among them two first features as well as two documentary forms. Productions from 30 countries are represented. 19 films are world premieres. Six films were directed or co-directed by women. Nine filmmakers have been at the festival before, six in Competition.
74th Berlin International Film Festival
February 15–25, 2024 / Berlinale
Visit the festival page >
