Berlin 2022: Screen’s guide to the Encounters titles

American Journal (Fr)

Dir Arnaud des Pallieres
French filmmaker des Pallieres continues his exploration of US culture and history, which began in earlier non-­fiction works Disneyland, Mon Vieux Pays Natal; Diane Wellington; and Poussières d’Amérique, which was created from silent film archives. In this documentary feature, he explores 20th-century US history through the eyes of a young boy. It is des Pallieres’ first time at Berlin; his most recent A-list festival appearance was with historic drama Michael Kohlhaas, which premiered in Cannes’ Competition in 2013.
Contact: Les Films d’Atalante

Axiom (Ger)

Dir Jons Jonsson
Moritz von Treuenfels stars as a compulsive liar in search of true love in Sweden-born writer/director Jonsson’s second feature, presented as a screenplay in development at the Berlinale Talents’ Script Station in 2017. The Bon Voyage Films and WDR/Arte co-production was backed by Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, BKM and German Federal Film Fund (DFFF). Jonsson’s debut feature Lamento — his graduation film from Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf — screened in Berlin’s Perspektive Deutsches Kino section in 2014; his short film The Sea played the festival in 2009.
Contact: Moritz Hemminger, The Playmaker Munich

Brother In Every Inch (Rus)

Dir Alexander Zolotukhin
Returning to the same military themes he explored in his 2019 feat­ure debut A Russian Youth, which screened in the Berlinale’s Forum in 2019, Russian director Zolotukhin is back in Berlin with a drama about two brothers in training to be air‑force pilots. Himself the son of a military pilot, the young director studied filmmaking under Alexander Sokurov, who is credited here as artistic consultant. Producers Andrey Sigle and Mary Nazari of Proline were also behind three of the respected Russian director’s films, including 2011 Venice Golden Lion winner Faust.
Contact: Loco Films

The City And The City (Greece)

Dirs Christos Passalis, Syllas Tzoumerkas
Made to commemorate the bicentenary of the Greek Revolution of 1821, this documentary, fiction and essay-film hybrid spans seven decades of the history of the directors’ hometown of Thessaloniki, and its once flourishing Jewish community. Made in collaboration with Thessaloniki Film Festival, the film is co-produced by the Greek National Opera and Homemade Films. Tzoumerkas’s previous film, the well-received The Miracle Of The Sargasso Sea — in which his co-director Passalis acted — premiered in Berlin’s Panorama section in 2019. A three-screen installation version of The City And The City was presented in Athens last summer.
Contact: Homemade Films

Coma (Fr)

Dir Bertrand Bonello
France’s Bonello reunites with Zombi Child actress Louise Labeque for this drama plunging into the psyche of two 18-year-old girls whose hyperconnected lives play out on Zoom, YouTube and social media platforms. Bonello’s debut feature Something Organic premiered in the Panorama section in 1998. He then headed to Critics’ Week at Cannes 2001 with The Pornographer and played in Cannes’ Competition with Tiresia in 2003, House Of Tolerance in 2011 and Saint Laurent in 2014.
Contact: Martin Gondre, Best Friend Forever 

The Death Of My Mother (Ger)

Dir Jessica Krummacher
Based on her own experiences, Krummacher’s second feature, after 2011’s Totem, follows a daughter (Birte Schnöink) accompanying her mother (Elsie de Brauw) on her final journey to the end of her life. The film is produced by Walker+Worm Film, in association with Krummacher’s own company Klappboxfilme, with backing from broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk, Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, FFF Bayern, Kuratorium junger deutscher Film, BKM and DFFF. It will be distributed in German cinemas by Grandfilm, which last year released Maria Speth’s Silver Bear-winning documentary Mr Bachmann And His Class.
Contact: Walker+Worm Film

Father’s Day (Rwanda)

Dir Kivu Ruhorahoza
Rwandan director Ruhorahoza returns to themes explored in his 2011 debut feature Grey Matter with this drama set in his home country — still struggling to come to terms with the Tutsi genocide — which follows three individuals whose family relationships are stretched to the limit. Made during the Covid‑19 pandemic with a local cast and crew who were trained via the production’s own filmmaking workshop, the micro-budget feature is produced by French Rwandan writer/musician Gaël Faye and Dida Nibagwire of Kigali-­based Iyugi Productions, which she founded with Ruhorahoza.
Contact: Dida Nibagwire, Iyugi Productions 

Flux Gourmet (UK-US-Hun)

Dir Peter Strickland
UK filmmaker Strickland’s debut feature Katalin Varga made its debut in Berlin’s Competition in 2009; now, after helming the likes of Berberian Sound Studio and In Fabric, he returns to the festival with his latest. Starring Asa Butterfield and Gwendoline Christie, Flux Gourmet follows the members of an arts collective devoted to culinary performance and is produced by Pietro Greppi of Lunapark Pictures and Serena Armitage of Red Breast Productions. IFC Films, which co-financed the film with the UK’s Bankside Films and Head Gear Films, will distribute in the US.
Contact: Bankside Films

A Little Love Package (Austria-Arg)

Dir Gaston Solnicki
This female-centric, Vienna-set comedy follows a choosy woman trying to find the right apartment with the help of her interior designer friend. It is a fifth feature for Argentinian filmmaker Solnicki; his last two titles have debuted at Venice — 2018 documentary Introduzione all’oscuro and Bluebeard, his only previous fiction film, in 2016. Angeliki Papoulia and Mario Bellatin star in A Little Love Package alongside Carmen Chaplin, granddaughter of Charlie.
Contact: Emilie Dauptain, Austrian Films 

Mutzenbacher (Austria)

Dir Ruth Beckermann
Veteran documentarist Beckermann returns to the Berlinale four years after winning the Forum’s original documentary award with The Waldheim Waltz. Seen as Austria’s own Fanny Hill, the 1906 novel Josefine Mutzenbacher was published as the memoir of a Viennese sex worker; attributed to Bambi author Felix Salten, it has long been central to the nation’s erotic imagination. In this documentary, Beckermann advertises a casting call and has numerous men read from the text to discover what the book can tell us today.
Contact: Emilie Dauptain, Austrian Films 

Queens Of The Qing Dynasty (Can)

Dir Ashley McKenzie
McKenzie’s debut feature Werewolf received its international premiere in Forum in 2017 after premiering in Toronto, and her follow-up comedy drama sees a suicidal teen bond with a Shanghai student assigned to watch over her in hospital. The film shot on Unama’ki (Cape Breton Island) in Canada in January and February 2020, with McKenzie producing through her Hi-Vis Film (formerly grassfire films) alongside Britt Kerr and Nelson MacDonald. Backing came from the Telefilm Canada Feature Film Fund, the Nova Scotia Film & Television Production Incentive Fund and CBC Films.
Contact: Ashley McKenzie, Hi-Vis Film

See You Friday, Robinson (Fr-Switz-Iran-Leb)

Dir Mitra Farahani
Iranian filmmaker Farahani produced Jean-Luc Godard’s 2018 The Image Book, and here she maps the correspondence between Godard, now in his 90s, and the UK-based Iranian director and writer Ebrahim Golestan, whose credits include Brick And Mirror (1965). The documentary marks Farahani’s return to Berlin following her painting documentary Fifi Howls From Happiness, which launched in 2013’s Panorama; she and co‑director Sonbol B Y also received the festival’s Teddy award in 2002 for short Just A Woman.
Contact Ecran Noir Productions 

Small, Slow But Steady (Jap-Fr)

Dir Sho Miyake
Following And Your Bird Can Sing, which bowed in Forum in 2019, Miyake returns with a drama about a hearing-impaired young woman (Yukino Kishii) who dreams of becoming a professional boxer, but she has her work cut out due to the Covid‑19 pandemic and the threatened closure of her boxing club. Japan’s Nagoya Broadcasting Network and Paris-based Comme des Cinémas produce. Miyake made his feature debut with Playback, which premiered at Locarno in 2012, and foll­owed up with a Japanese hip-hop documentary The Cockpit, which debuted in Cinema du Reel in 2015. His most recent work is Ju-On Origins, Netflix’s first Japanese original horror series.
Contact: Charades

Sonne (Austria)

Dir Kurdwin Ayub
Up-and-coming director Ayub made a mark with her 2016 documentary Paradise! Paradise! in which she and her father revisited their native Iraq. Her fiction follow-up is a culture-clash story about three teenage girls in Vienna who cause a stir among Kurdish Muslims after they film themselves twerking in hijabs. Described by Ayub as “an amusing, chaotic take on the current teen generation [and] cultural ‘identification difficulties’”, the film is produced by Ulrich Seidl and Georg Aschauer for Ulrich Seidl Filmproduktion.
Contact: Cercamon

Unrest (Switz)

Dir Cyril Schäublin
A 19th-century watchmaker becomes involved in a local movement of anarchist watchmakers, where she meets a mysterious Russian. Anticipation will be high for the second feature from Swiss director Schäublin; his 2017 debut Those Who Are Fine won a special mention at Locarno, best film at Zurich and best international feature at Edinburgh. Producer Michela Pini has European festival pedigree on the D’Innocenzo brothers’ Bad Tales, which she co-produced through her Amka Films Productions.
Contact: Alpha Violet

• Berlin 2022: Screen’s guide to the Competition titles