Berlin 2024: Screen’s guide to the Special, Forum and Generation titles

Berlinale Special 

Abiding Nowhere (Tai-US)

Dir. Tsai Ming-liang
The 10th film in Tsai’s Walker series takes place in Washington DC, following the separate journeys of two lonely souls. The film stars the Taiwanese filmmaker’s longtime collaborator Lee Kang-Sheng, who is again dressed as a Buddhist monk, and Laos’s Anong Houngheangsy who starred in Tsai’s Days and also works as the filmmaker’s assistant on his art museum projects. Director Tsai is a Berlinale regular, having premiered his 1992 feature debut Rebels Of The Neon God and an early entry from the Walker series, Journey To The West (2014), in the Panorama strand as well as three films in Competition: The River (1997), The Wayward Cloud (2005) and most recently Days (2020).
Contact: Claude Wang, Homegreen Films 

At Averroes & Rosa Parks (Fr)

Dir. Nicolas Philibert
Philibert returns to Berlin following his 2023 Golden Bear triumph On The Adamant with the second part of a triptych set in the same world of Paris’s Central Psychiatric Group. The film focuses on interviews and meetings between care­givers and patients to spotlight the different forms of care used for mental health, giving viewers a glimpse into the unique worlds of those giving and receiving treatment. France’s TS Productions, which co-produced On The Adamant with Japan’s Longride, returns as producer.
Contact: Alice Lesort, Les Films du Losange 

August My Heaven (Jap)

Dir. Riho Kudo
The third film of rising Japanese filmmaker Kudo centres on a professional stand-in actor for hire, who plays a relative, lover or friend for her clients and attends ceremonies. It reunites Kudo with actress Yukino Murakami, who starred in the writer/director’s debut Orphan’s Blues, which won the top prize at Pia Film Festival in 2018. The mid-length film is produced by Hideyuki Okamoto of Sunborn alongside Hisashi Yamaguchi and Kudo.
Contact: Nikkatsu 

The Box Man (Jap)

Dir. Gakuryu Ishii
This adaptation of Kobo Abe’s 1973 novel of the same name is directed by influential director Ishii, known for stylistic films such as Burst City (1982) that helped spark Japan’s cyberpunk movement. The story follows a nameless man who gives up his identity to live with a large cardboard box over his head, encountering bizarre characters as he wanders the streets of Tokyo. The title role is taken by Masatoshi Nagase (Paterson) in a cast that includes Tadanobu Asano (Mortal Kombat) and Koichi Sato (Kingdom II). Producers are Keisuke Konishi, who was an executive producer on Cannes’ Un Certain Regard title Plan 75, and Tomohiko Seki.
Contact: Rie Hatano, Happinet Phantom Studios

Chime (Jap)

Dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Kurosawa is a Japanese auteur more associated with Cannes and Venice, where he won the Silver Lion for best director in 2020 with Wife Of A Spy. But he has played films at Berlin since License To Live in 1999, followed by Creepy in 2016 and Foreboding in 2018. His latest is a mid-length title that stars Mutsuo Yoshioka as a schoolteacher whose life is disrupted by a chime that brings with it an increasing sense of dread. The film is produced by C&I Entertainment, whose credits include Oscar winner Drive My Car.
Contact: Nikkatsu

Dostoevsky (It)

Dirs. Damiano D’Innocenzo, Fabio D’Innocenzo
Four years after they won a Silver Bear for their Bad Tales screenplay, the D’Innocenzo twins return to Berlin with the world premiere of their first series production, Dostoevsky. The Italian crime drama finds a morally ambiguous policeman pursuing a serial killer. Filippo Timi stars, while the D’Innocenzos direct all six episodes. Dostoevsky is a Sky Original, produced by the UK broadcaster with Italy’s Paco Cinematografica.
Contact: Andy Kemble, NBCUniversal Global Distribution

Eleven Tomorrows: Berlinale Meets Football (Ger)

Dirs. Multiple
Germany hosts Euro 2024 this summer and the Berlinale is contributing to the football championship’s cultural programme with this compilation of 11 documentary shorts. They are made by students from Munich’s University of Television and Film (HFF) under the artistic direction of Benedetta Films, and focus on clubs from across Germany where young people play football. The youngsters involved will be invited to the Berlinale to attend the film’s premiere and take part in workshops.
Contact: Berlinale 

The Empty Grave (Ger-Tanzania)

Dirs. Agnes Lisa Wegner, Cece Mlay
This Germany-Tanzania documentary follows the journey of two Tanzanian families in search of their stolen ancestors. Their quest leads them to Germany where thousands of skulls and bones from former German colonies are stored in museum depots, taken for racist research and as macabre trophies. It is a collaboration between Baden-Baden-based kurhaus production and Dar es Salaam-based Kijiweni Productions.
Contact: Salzgeber 

exergue — on documenta 14 (Gr)

Dir. Dimitris Athiridis
With a running time of 840 minutes, exergue — on documenta 14 is billed as the second-longest film ever made. In the documentary, Greek director Athiridis chronicles the epic journey of artistic director Adam Szymczyk as he prepares for influential art exhibition documenta 14, which took place in Kassel and Athens in 2017. It is produced through Greek production company Faliro House. Athiridis’s previous docs include 2012’s One Step Ahead and 2009’s T4 Trouble And The Self Admiration Society.
Contact: Caroline von Kuhn, Faliro House 

Made In England: The Films Of Powell And Pressburger (UK)

Dir. David Hinton
Martin Scorsese narrates this deep dive into British filmmaking pair Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, whose acclaimed career yielded works including A Matter Of Life And Death, The Red Shoes and Black Narcissus. The documentary includes rare archival material from the personal collections of Powell, Pressburger and Scorsese, who offers reflections on how the duo’s work informed his own film­making and the impact of his friendship with Powell. Matt Wells and Nick Varley produce. Hinton’s credits include co-directing Rotterdam archival documentary All This Can Happen with Siobhan Davies, and TV documentaries on the likes of artist Francis Bacon.
Contact: Altitude Film Sales 

Sasquatch Sunset (US)

Dirs. David Zellner, Nathan Zellner
Jesse Eisenberg and Riley Keough don hairy costumes for the Zellner brothers’ dialogue-free story of a day in the life of a Bigfoot family. The drama premiered at Sundance and was acquired by Bleecker Street for US distribution prior to production. The sibling co-directors took their 2018 Sundance comedy western Damselstarring Robert Pattinson and Mia Wasikowska to Berlin, where it played in Competition.
Contact: Protagonist Pictures

Shikun (Isr-Fr-Switz)

Dir. Amos Gitai
Inspired by Eugene Ionesco’s allegorical play Rhinoceros, Gitai’s latest dramatises the emergence of intolerance and totalitarianism through a series of episodes that take place in a single Israeli building, the Shikun. Among a diverse group of people of different origins and languages, some turn into rhinoceroses, while others resist. An ensemble cast is led by Irene Jacob. Gitai’s directing credits include Cannes selections Kippur, Kedma and Free Zone and Venice entries Laila In Haifa, Promised Land and Ana Arabia.
Contact: Visit Films

Subject: Filmmaking (Ger)

Dirs. Edgar Reitz, Jörg Adolph
At the age of 91, German director Reitz — best known for his five-film Heimat series — will be honoured with the Berlinale Camera prize for his more than seven-decade contribution to cinema. After the ceremony the festival will premiere his latest work Subject: Filmmaking (Filmstunde_23), co-directed with Adolph and centring on an unlikely reunion with pupils from a girls’ school who Reitz taught filmmaking to back in 1968.
Contact: if… Productions

Supersex (It)

Dirs. Matteo Rovere, Francesco Carrozzini, Francesca Mazzoleni
Alessandro Borghi (Suburra) stars in this Net­flix original as real-life pornographic actor Rocco Siffredi. The biographical miniseries covers Siffredi’s early years in a small Italian town and his eventual rise to the top of the adult film industry. Supersex reunites Borgi with Francesca Manieri and Matteo Rovere, his collaborators on 2019 adventure drama The First King, who serve as showrunner and director respectively. Rovere shares directing duties with The Hanging Sun filmmaker Carrozzini and documentary filmmaker Mazzoleni. Supersexis an Italian production from Fremantle-­owned The Apartment and Banijay-owned Groenlandia.
Contact: Netflix

Turn In The Wound (UK-Ger-It-US)

Dir. Abel Ferrara
Ferrara explores human conflict and the search for peace and balance through the music and words of US singer/songwriter Patti Smith and the experiences of people at war in Ukraine. The Rome-based US filmmaker has spent much of his career playing at Venice, but ventured to Berlin in 2020 when his feature Siberia, starring Willem Dafoe, played in Competition. This international co-­production unites Ventana Films, Rimsky Productions, Maze Pictures and Interlinea Films.
Contact: Maze Pictures

Special Gala

Cuckoo (Ger)

Dir. Tilman Singer
Singer made a splash on the horror scene with his acclaimed 2018 feature debut Luz. The plot for his latest, Cuckoo, is under wraps. The horror film is backed by Neon and was shot on 35mm in Germany. It reunites the writer/director with cinema­tographer Paul Faltz and production designer Dario Mendez Acosta, and stars Jan Bluthardt (Luz), Euphoria’s Hunter Schafer, Dan Stevens and Jessica Henwick.
Contact: Neon 

Love Lies Bleeding (US-UK)

Dir. Rose Glass
Glass’s follow-up to her debut feature Saint Maud takes flight to Berlin following its Sundance premiere. The thriller sees Katy O’Brian star as an aspiring bodybuilder who forms a complex bond with a woman at her gym, played by Kristen Stewart. A24 produces alongside Glass’s Saint Maud collaborators, Andrea Cornwell of Lobo Films and Oliver Kassman for Escape Plan Productions. Film4 developed the project alongside the filmmakers and co-financed with A24. Lionsgate is releasing in the UK and Ireland.
Contact: A24 Films

The Roundup: Punishment (S Kor)

Dir. Heo Myeong-haeng
This is the fourth instalment in the hit franchise led by Don Lee (aka Ma Dong-seok) as the ‘Beast Cop’, who must take down the head of an online gambling organisation (Kim Moo-yul). Director Heo is a well-known stunt co-ordinator who is expected to increase the intensity of the franchise’s fight scenes. Previous instalment The Roundup: No Way Out was the second-biggest film at the South Korean box office last year, while The Roundup was the biggest title of 2022. The film is produced by ABO Entertainment, Hong Film, Big Punch Pictures and BA Entertainment.
Contact: Junho Park, K-Movie

Seven Veils (Can)

Dir. Atom Egoyan
Egoyan is said to have tapped into his own experience working in opera to write and direct this drama about a theatre director haunted by memories when she remounts her former mentor’s staging of Salome. Amanda Seyfried, who also starred for Egoyan in 2009 thriller Chloe, takes the lead. Rhombus Media produced and also co-financed with XYZ Films and Finland’s IPR.VC. Seven Veils first premiered as a special presentation at Toronto last September.
Contact: XYZ Films

Spaceman (US)

Dir. Johan Renck
Adam Sandler teams up with his frequent collaborator Netflix in this story from Primetime Emmy-winning Swedish TV and music video director Renck (Chernobyl). The actor plays an astronaut at the edge of the solar system who enlists the help of an age-old creature hiding in his spaceship to fix his marriage. The cast includes Carey Mulligan, Kunal Nayyar, Lena Olin, Isabella Rossellini and the voice of Paul Dano, while Channing Tatum is among the producers. Based on Jaroslav Kalfar’s 2017 novel Spaceman Of Bohemia, the film will have a limited theatrical run in late February before dropping on Netflix on March 1.
Contact: Netflix 

The Strangers’ Case (Jor)

Dir. Brandt Andersen
French actor Omar Sy stars in US producer Andersen’s debut feature, expanded from his own 2020 short Refugee, about a Syrian family hit by tragedy and the subsequent aftermath that affects five families across four countries. Andersen’s exec producer credits include Everest, Lone Survivor and Broken City, and he also produces this title with Ossama Bawardi through Jordan’s Philistine Films, alongside Ryan Busse and Charlie Endean. Other cast members include Yasmine Al Massri, Yahya Mahayni, Ziad Bakri, Constantine Markoulakis and Jason Beghe. Sy, Al Massri and Beghe also starred in the original short.
Contact: Mister Smith Entertainment; WME Independent (North America) 

Treasure (Ger-Fr)

Dir. Julia von Heinz
A road trip film set in 1990s Poland, Treasure stars Lena Dunham as an American music journalist on a trip to the homeland of her Holocaust survivor father, played by Stephen Fry. The film is the third in von Heinz’s ‘Aftermath Trilogy’, exploring the legacy of Germany’s Nazi past, following 2013’s Hanna’s Journey and 2020’s And Tomorrow The Entire World, which was Germany’s 2021 Oscar submission.
Contact: FilmNation Entertainment 

Generation Highlights

Modern-day London opens this year’s Generation 14plus strand via Sasha Nathwani’s debut feature Last Swim, following a day and night in the life of a British-Iranian teenager. Nathwani wrote the film with Screen International Star of Tomorrow 2018 producer Helen Simmons for Sound Of Metal producers Caviar.

After starring in Berlin 2022 Competition title The Passengers Of The Night, French actress Noée Abita returns to the festival in My Summer With Irene from Carlo Sironi, director of Venice 2019 title Sole. Set in 1997, the new film depicts a burgeoning friendship on an island off the coast of Sicily.

The spirit of youth flourishes in Generation, as exemplified by Canadian filmmaker Philippe Lesage’s Who By Fire, where the ideals of a group of youngsters staying in an isolated woodland estate clash with the adults’ egos. Be For Films is handling sales.

The selection’s international scope ranges from Madagascar, where Luck Razanajaona’s Disco Afrika: A Malagasy Story finds 20-year-old Kwane return from the sapphire mines to face his country’s corruption; to China, where Liu Yaonan’s The Great Phuket (Parallax Films) sees teenager Li Xing discover an underground shelter full of strange occurrences; to the Philippines, where a young cinephile searches for his long‑lost father in Ryan Machado’s Fin.

Non-fiction is on the map via Iranian title Maydegol, in which the eponymous Afghan teen pursues her dreams of becoming a professional Muay Thai boxer. The strand brings it back to Berlin, then out again, as 17-year-old Hazal is forced to flee her parties in the city after a fatal incident in Turkish-German filmmaker Asli Ozarslan’s Elbow.

Although slanted towards younger children, the Kplus strand still handles advanced themes — as in Anthony Schatteman’s Young Hearts (Films Boutique), in which a 14-year-old boy is confronted with his sexuality when meeting his new neighbour.

Parents both absent and present also hold sway. Kim Hye-young’s It’s Okay! sees a girl take shelter in her dance school after her mother’s death, while in Klaudia Reynicke’s Sundance-launched Reinas (The Yellow Affair), two girls travel with their mother from Peru to the US to reunite with their estranged father.

The latter is part of a strong South American presence, alongside The Major Tones, in which Argentinian Ana receives Morse code messages through the metal plate in her arm; and Through Rocks And Clouds (Luxbox Films), as alpaca herder Feliciano dreams of Peru qualifying for the World Cup. Football also plays its part in Winners, as Syrian refugee Mona must bring her team together to succeed.

There is room for animated animals too, in Mascha Halberstad’s Fox And Hare Save The Forest, produced by Benelux animation stalwarts Submarine, Walking The Dog and Doghouse Films.

Ben Dalton

Forum Highlights

Among the 27 world premieres in this year’s Forum is Anja Salomonowitz’s biopic Sleeping With A Tiger starring Birgit Minichmayr as Maria Lassnig, the Austrian artist whose short-film work is screening in Forum Special. Also hailing from Austria is three-hour documentary Henry Fonda For President, directed by film critic Alexander Horwath and charting the US actor’s career through a fictionalised presidential lens. Another documentary with a unique framework is Lola Arias’ second feature Reas, which depicts the lives of cis and trans people in a Buenos Aires prison using musical re-enactment.

Other documentary highlights include Italy and Switzerland’s The Secret Drawer from acclaimed filmmaker Costanza Quatriglio, who turns her attention to her late father, while Katharina Pethke’s Reproductiondissects themes of motherhood and career. There is also Ukrainian war film Intercepted from Oksana Karpovych, which uses intercepted phone conversations between Russian soldiers and their families to depict the shocking parallels.

Fellow Ukrainian Roman Bondarchuk brings political drama The Editorial Office, about a young biologist who witnesses an arson attack and faces obstacles when trying to go public. Meanwhile, Davis Simanis explores Soviet Russia in Maria’s Silence, based on the true story of Latvian silent film star Marija Leiko, who ends up joining the Soviet theatre. There is more from eastern Europe with Andrei Cohn’s Holy Week set in early 1900s Romania at a village inn where Christian and Jewish people converge.

From Asia comes Vinothraj PS’s Indian drama The Adamant Girl, about a woman whose family think she is possessed because she loves a man from a lower caste. Another India-set drama premiering in Forum is Siddartha Jatla’s mythological romance In The Belly Of A Tiger following a man who sacrifices himself to a tiger in order to help his family.

Japan has a strong showing with Kazuhiro Soda’s documentary The Cats Of Gokogu Shrine, about a community of cats that find a home at a Shinto shrine in the local town. Making its international premiere is Shô Miyake’s unlikely romance All The Long Nights starring Hokuto Matsumura from Japanese boyband SixTONES. South Korea is represented by Jang Jae-hyun’s horror title Exhuma, following three people who search for a cursed tomb.

Ellie Calnan

Profiles by Ellie Calnan, Ben Dalton, Tim Dams, Elaine Guerini, Jeremy Kay, Rebecca Leffler, Michael Rosser, Mona Tabbara, Shaurya Thapa, Silvia Wong