17/02/2025 - BERLINALE 2025: In celebrating 75 years of the German festival, Berlinale Shorts showcases films that find contemporary society sadly wanting

While the past few editions of Berlinale Shorts have chiefly dealt with a generation coping with a world that seems increasingly difficult to navigate, this year’s selection of competition films vying for the Golden Bear seem to drift towards a slightly nihilistic view of humanity’s future. With a sense of exasperation about those who seem to steadfastly refuse to learn from the past, there is a tentative air of doom that blows through the films on offer. But, if one weathers the storm, one can find a few rays of hope.

Directorial duo Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel return to the Berlinale for the fifth time with the animation How Are You? (France), in which Disney-like aesthetics meet a modern – and often nihilism-ravaged – musing on the world around us. A group of animals live on an island as they struggle to heal from the disease of modern life. This flits between the comedy, stark surrealism and fractured philosophy that have been the hallmark of Poggi and Vinel’s recent animations. There are moments that are laugh-out-loud funny – often helped by the juxtaposition of the cartoon-style CGI with the dark musings on mental and physical degradation – but the evisceration of current times makes the film a wallow in the viscera of contemporary society.

Less nihilistic, but just as uncompromising in its view of modern society, is Daniel Asadi Faezi and Mila Zhluktenko’s documentary In Retrospect (Germany). A shopping mall built by migrants for the 1972 Munich Olympics becomes the site of a racist shooting in 2016 as the film uses archive footage to muse on the connection between the present and the past. It is a powerful evocation of cycles of violence and hatred that much of society is unable to break. This cycle is also touched upon in an altogether more surreal way in After Colossus by Timoteus Anggawan Kusno (Italy/Indonesia/Netherlands), in which, after the collapse of Indonesia’s dictatorship, a team of researchers discovers a forgotten archive revealing a covert operation that manipulated dreams and memories. Utilising a heady mix of genre tropes and mediums, this dreamlike affair reflects a past that seems lost to us, even though it remains embedded throughout “obsolete” media. Ideas of unreliability are also touched upon in the quirky but thought-provoking Koki, Ciao by Quenton Miller (Netherlands), in which the cockatoo belonging to former Yugoslav president Tito becomes a narrator of history and a possible revealer of secrets.

The ebb and flow of war and peace is explored in the powerful doc Ceasefire by Jakob Krese (Germany/Italy/Slovenia), in which a survivor of Srebrenica tries to keep her trauma in check, even when her way of life becomes threatened, while the non-fiction title Their Eyes by Nicolas Gourault (France) sees workers talk about their everyday lives editing the images that will teach cars how to self-drive, gently exposing the inequality that lies at the heart of the global economy.

More straight narrative fare is on offer with three films dealing with young women growing up in a complex society. Living Stones by Jakob Ladányi Jancso (Hungary) is an enormously powerful short about the space between healing and hurting, while Because of (U) by Tohé Commaret (France) is a subtle yet massively affecting character study of a girl left behind by the people in her life. Lucia G Romero returns to Berlin, after winning a Crystal Bear for her short Cura Sana in Generation in 2024 (see the interview), with Close to September (Spain), in which a girl living on a campsite finds herself developing a romance with a holidaymaker. With all of the urgency and humanity of her previous short, it’s a paean to growing up and – for once – the possibility of a brighter future.

The selection is rounded off by a number of animations, including the amazing Mother's Child by Naomi Noir (Netherlands), which champions those who must give full-time care to loved ones while drowning in a sea of bureaucracy, the spikily fun yet moving animated musical Stone of Destiny and the sensual evocation of the everyday Ordinary Life.

The full list of films screening in the Berlinale Shorts competition is as follows:

After Colossus - Timoteus Anggawan Kusno (Italy/Indonesia/Netherlands)
In Retrospect - Daniel Asadi Faezi, Mila Zhluktenko (Germany)
Anba dlo - Luiza Calagian, Rosa Caldeira Cuba (Brazil/Haiti)
Stone of Destiny - Julie Černá (Czech Republic)
Casa chica - Lau Charles (Mexico )
Because of (U) - Tohé Commaret (France)
Citizen-Inmate - Hesam Eslami (Iran)
Their Eyes - Nicolas Gourault (France)
Ceasefire - Jakob Krese (Germany/Italy/Slovenia)
Living Stones - Jakob Ladányi Jancso (Hungary)
Children's Day - Giselle Lin (Singapore)
Lloyd Wong, Unfinished - Lesley Loksi Chan (Canada)
Sammi, Who Can Detach His Body Parts - Rein Maychaelson (Indonesia)
Koki, Ciao - Quenton Miller (Netherlands)
Ordinary Life - Yoriko Mizushiro (France/Japan)
Mother's Child - Naomi Noir (Netherlands)
How Are You? - Caroline Poggi, Jonathan Vinel (France)
Close to September - Lucía G Romero (Spain)
Extracurricular Activity - Dean Wei, Xu Yidan (China)
Through Your Eyes - Nelson Yeo (Singapore)